


apocalyptic

by mssjynx



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Death, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Gore, Injury, M/M, Multi, Past Relationships, Romance, Sexual Content, Teen Romance, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, [may add more as story develops] - Freeform, relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-07-20 15:45:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16140398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssjynx/pseuds/mssjynx
Summary: 27th of February, 2021New York CityThe apocalypse begins..To the fault of an experiment, a virus is released into the mass crowds of New York City. A virus named Frenzy, which turns every individual into a walking corpse. Never sleeps. Just hungers. Starves.Tyler and Craig are thrown into it, just 17 and 18: they aren't ready for something like this. But they don't have a choice, their entire town becoming overrun with the Frenzy. They have to find a way out. They have to find safety..A zombie apocalypse story which features a number of teenage boys and girls, caught up in a country overthrown with a virus. They have to rebuild their lives, rebuild their homes and try and survive on their own with each other.But no one said the zombie apocalypse would be easy. A promise of fear, pain and loss; no one can truly escape unscathed, but they will do everything in their power to get as many of them safely to the end of it.A story of love blossoming in a hopeless place; of losing friends, brothers, sisters, lovers; of fighting to survive no matter the costs.





	1. Experiment 32

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome! This is a story I've been planning for a number of many long months and I /really/ hope I can get it going smoothly. I really hope you enjoy what you find, I hope it may live up to expectations and I hope I don't get too many angry comments :]
> 
> I do not know how frequent I will be updating (from the first day of this novel I have exams in about a month and a half) but as soon as they are over I will be able to pour myself into this story over my 10 week summer break. So it may be a slow start, I apologise for that, but I really hope it's worth it. 
> 
> Thank you! I hope you enjoy.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> \- death  
> \- gore

_New York City [ 2. 25. 2021 ]_  
_Experiment 32._  
_Reporter: Josie Thompson_

**Frenzy:** Effects on Human Behaviour, Sleeping and Eating Patterns.

Frenzy is a manufactured stimulant drug that is aimed to reduce a person’s need to sleep and eat over a certain period of time depending on the dosage. Previously, in Experiments 28 and 29, it has been shown that 300mg of Frenzy injected into the Basilic vein will affect the subject for a total of 48 hours. During this time the subject will show no signs of fatigue or need/want to sleep and will show no signs of hunger or need/want to eat. 

Experiment 32 will aim to increase the overall dosage of Frenzy by 350% (1050mg; 150mg each day) and, therefore; extend the duration of these effects to seven full days and nights, or 168 hours. It is hypothesized that this dosage will only require two small meals during the week and no time to rest or sleep. 

Details of Experiment 32:

• 5 Subjects sectioned off from each other by foldable walls.  
• Two reporters per subject recording any changes of said subject’s behaviour throughout shift.  
• 150mg dosage at 0700 of each day (total: 1050mg)  
• Small meal delivered at 1900 of Night 3 and Night 5.  
• Participants of Experiment 32: subjects (5), reporters (10), nurses (8), anaesthetists (2), nutritionists (2), sleep specialists (2) and head scientists (3).

* * *

 

 **Reporter 2:** Josie Thompson  
**Subject 4:** Kyle

Day 1

0700\. 150mg dosage delivered.

No changes in behaviour. 

0810\. Subject sitting on floor of room, opens puzzle box and begins to solve puzzle. 

1130\. Subject finishes puzzle. Has been idly chatting with Subject 3 through wall about childhood. 

1500\. Subject asks for earphones and is now listening to music and humming along to it.

1600\. Subject shows no sign of hunger or fatigue. When asked if hungry, simply states “No.”. When asked if tired, states “No, I have enough energy to stay awake for weeks.”

1800\. Subject opens a second puzzle.

Night 1

1900\. Subject finishes second puzzle.

2000\. Subject is laying on his back staring at the ceiling with hands on his chest. Is not moving. Eyes are wide open. 

2030\. “I have so much energy I think that if I move, I will tear, and it will all pour out of me.”

2330\. Has not moved in three hours. Still on his back. Still staring. 

0100\. Sits up and breaks up both puzzles. Puts all pieces in the one box. Takes a black marker. Begins drawing on the floor. 

0300\. Is drawing a range of different shaped and sized flowers across the floor, humming an unidentifiable song to himself.

Day 2

0700\. Subject flinches when 150mg dosage is delivered. Spends a few moments itching the point and mumbling. 

Behaviour varies throughout the day.

0800\. Subject is upbeat and cheerful, chattering away with Subject 5 who is mimicking the same behaviour. 

0900\. Subject’s mood lowers, and he stops responding to Subject 5. He only nods when a nurse asks if he is feeling okay. 

1100\. Opens four packs of cards and shuffles them altogether. Begins organizing them in order. 

1130\. Licking his lips and teeth. Sticking fingers in his mouth to “Scratch the itches that keep coming back.” 

All subjects complaining of the same thing. 

1440\. Finishes organizing the pack of cards. Singing to himself in what sounds like gibberish. When asked, the subject claims he is feeling fine. 

1800\. Subject has been zoned out for a long time. No one is disturbing him. Subject sits with his back to the far wall, staring at his feet and occasionally licking his lips.

Night 2

2000\. Subject claims to feel itchy all over his mouth but denies being hungry or tired. 

0020\. Subject is giggling to himself. When asked “What is funny?” he responds with: “It’s a secret.”

0400\. Subject is muttering to himself in a language that doesn’t sound like English or anything else. Seems to be repeating the same kind of sounds. Claims they mean nothing when asked but resumes muttering soon after. 

0430\. Subject 5 mimics the same muttering to Subject 4. They take turns repeating it back and forth. 

0500\. Subject is silent.

Day 3

0700\. Subject shakes while receiving 150mg dosage. Begins crying, clutching his arm tightly. When asked why he was holding onto his arm, subject responds with: “If I let go, it’ll fall off.” 

All subjects repeating similar symptoms

0720\. Subject is silent, still holding his arm. Only motions are licking lips and gnashing teeth, and tears leaking out of his eyes. 

0900\. Subject has let go of arm but is still silently crying. Subject pulls out packs of cards, dropping them all around him. He is ripping them all up. 

1100\. Subject’s nose begins bleeding. Subject 1 and Subject 2 also are bleeding from the nose. Nurses checked on all three: vitals are clear. 

1150\. Subject’s nose stops bleeding. 

Orders to wait out the rest of the day and see how they go after their first of two meals. 

1320\. Subject yells to Subject 3: “Stop screaming!” Subject 3 isn’t screaming. 

1500\. Subject is alternating between scratching his arm and scratching the insides of his mouth. 

1730\. Subject is zoned out. Left shoulder spasming at random intervals. All subjects are silent.

Night 3

1900\. The food has been delivered to each subject. Each one claims they are not hungry but eat like they’re starving. Subject is grinning as he eats. 

1930\. All unusual behaviour ceased. Subject is sitting on the floor and putting all the torn-up cards into a box. Answering questions easily and casually. Shows no signs of distress, hunger or fatigue. 

2120\. Subject passes out cold. Only subject to have done so: has not been treated any differently to other patients. 

2125\. Subject still has not woken up. He is to be removed from the experiment and brought to nurse bay. 

2127\. Subject 5 and Subject 2 have passed out in the same fashion. 

2130\. Experiment 32 cancelled.

* * *

 

“Experiment thirty-two cancelled.”

There was an air of defeat in the control room. Reporters placed down their papers and gazed dryly into their subjects’ rooms as the doors unlocked and nurses swept in with stretchers and equipment.

Josie Thompson huffed a sigh, her subject laying dead still with his eyes rested shut. She watched, lips twisted in dissatisfaction. They had all been so certain about this one. They had all been _so sure_ it would work-

“There’s no pulse! Subject- Subject Two has no pulse!”

Dissatisfaction morphed into disbelief as the reality of those words sunk in, shrieked from the nurse crouched at Subject Two’s side with her two fingers fitted neatly beneath her jaw. Josie gawked. No pulse? The girl was dead?

She looked back through the glass before her, horror sending a chill down her spine. The pale skin of Subject Four. The limpness of his body. She couldn’t look away.

Panic arose, other nurses checking the pulses of their patients also. Scientists and doctors cried out orders, half-made decisions thrown back and forth.

Five dead subjects. Five dead _people_.

Josie watched. Her eyes ran along the length of the twenty-four year old laying in the room, the twenty-four year old she’d been studying for hours on end. She watched loose muscles clench up. His left shoulder twitched, unnoticed by the nurse speaking urgently to her co-workers.

But he hadn’t had a pulse either… so how was he…?

His head, which had fallen to the side when he had collapsed, flinched. Subject Four’s eyes snapped open, no longer showing dark brown irises. They were big, white and empty. Josie half-stood, hands on the desk. Those eyes… She was struck with terror as they stared and stared at nothing, her blood as cold as ice. But nothing could prepare her for the way the supposedly “pulse-less” man sat bolt-upright, locked two unsteady hands around the closest nurse’s arm and lurched forward to lock his jaws around her shoulder.

The woman’s scream was blood curdling. Every occupant of the main room froze in their place, eyes on Kyle, Subject Four, the man with his teeth buried in the flesh of the woman beside him. The other two nurses within the room stumbled away from them both, all eyes watching as he shook his head from side to side like a dog, shaking her back and forth with him. Red-tinted saliva dripped from his mouth and with a guttural growl, he bit his teeth down hard and ripped the woman’s flesh right from her shoulder.

Her scream echoed again, face distorted with agony and fear and pain. Big green eyes, stricken with terror, rolled back to show only white and her whole body spasmed, falling to the floor and shaking uncontrollably. She foamed at the mouth. Her shoulder bled.

She let out another scream, more like a screech. A banshee. An animal.

Kyle let go of her and lunged at the next closest nurse.

She screamed. Then two other screams echoed back. Two other nurses sitting too close to their passed out patients. Two other nurses not paying attention. Bared teeth dug into an arm, dug into the side of a neck. Two nurses fell to the floor, screeching and writhing.

And by then the first nurse bitten was on her feet. Saliva and blood dripped from her lips, pulled back to show her bared teeth. Her body twitched and shuddered every few seconds. Her eyes were bright, blinding white.

She lunged for the window, soulless eyes locked onto the chaos inside. Screaming. Shouting. Absolute mayhem.

Josie backed herself into a corner, all five rooms home to screaming nurses, growling nurses, bright white eyes. They threw themselves through open doors.

There was no way possible for anyone to escape it. The door was on the other side of the room to Josie. There were no phones allowed in the room. There was no way of communicating to anyone anywhere outside of that damned room. They were trapped. She was trapped.

Blood. Screaming. Growling.

It was her own Subject who got her, clambering towards her through the mess of bodies, alive and not quite. His eyes were locked on her, moving on all fours because walking on two legs seemed too difficult a task for him, for it, for the monster that this drug had turned him into.

He grabbed her ankles, yanking her towards him. Malicious grin, _starving_ grin. She screamed. His teeth sunk into her thigh and the agony ripped through her all at once. Everything went black, then burning white. And everything went silent.

-

Perhaps infecting an entire building in the middle of New York city with an illness never seen before wasn’t enough. Perhaps the universe craved something more than that, something worse.

Had the experiment started a week earlier, or a week later, or even days prior; it could have been avoided. But no. On the third day of the experiment, there was no soul in the seven-storey building with a pulse. Blood splattered walls, carpets, smudged stairs where the undead had stumbled and fallen down the stairwells.

On the third day of the experiment, the twenty-seventh of February in 2021, the entirety of New York City was on the streets, mass crowds parading with multi-coloured clothes, flags and signs. A parade of pride and joy, faces grinning, singing and cheering. Crowds so condensed you simply couldn’t see or hear anything that wasn’t within two metres of you.

It was sickeningly perfect. A bitter coincidence that created the flawless scene of complete and utter devastation.

Blood splattered, white-eyed, growling creatures stumbled through revolving doors, unnoticed by the crowds in the night air. Their snarls went unheard, shrieks blended into screams of excitement, starving eyes zoned in on the masses of people, masses of beating hearts.

On the other side of the street, no one even noticed as screams of terror and agony ripped through the air, muffled with laughter and singing. No one noticed bodies falling, people unable to scatter, unable to be heard, unable to warn anyone.

No one was listening. No one could listen.

Teeth were sinking into skin, bodies falling into violent seizures before getting back to their feet and launching at the next closest individual. Infection spread down the entire street, unbeknownst to the next one over. Masses of joyous individuals became crowds of starving creatures. They tore through streets, sought out sound, light, heat. Sought out the living and stole life after life with every bite.

Within five hours, seven million people of New York had been bitten and infected with the Frenzy. No time to sound the alarm, no time to escape. When the sun rose on the twenty-eighth of February, there was no pulse within the entirety of New York City.

Eight and a half million people, turned into instinct-driven cannibals. They followed sounds, scents and movement. They moved in masses, moved out of the city, followed whatever new sensation caught their attention. In hunt for fresh blood and beating hearts: no one had any idea.

On the twenty-seventh of February, a disease broke out in the City of New York, unavoidable, uncurable.

On the twenty-seventh of February, the apocalypse began.

* * *

 


	2. The 28th of February

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGERS:  
> \- gore  
> \- death, family death  
> \- violence

**Courtland, Virginia.**  
28 th of February  
04:02pm

The train whistled, wheels screeching to a stop against rusted tracks. People watched from the station, eager to board and get to their next destination.

"Train Four, Courtland Station. Departing in seven minutes." A robotic voice called the arrival of the train. Patient faces formed frowns as the vehicle slid to a stop, wide windows splashed with spots of red, and all inhabitants standing around the seats and in the aisle. It was difficult to see through the reflection of the lowering sun on the glass but it didn't matter as the voice sounded again. "Doors opening."

A hiss released as five doors opened along the length of the train. It became clear that something was wrong as bodies scrambled out of the cars in mass, falling to the platform and writhing on the ground. Passengers released shrieks and howls that weren't natural to leave the mouths of human beings.

And their number didn't seem to stop. One after the other, they poured out, forming piles of writhing bloody limbs at the opening of each door until they began to just climb over each other to get out. When they stood, they didn't stay. Each gory body launched towards the retreating people, fighting through the lack of limb control and coordination.

It didn't stop them. They were fast, strong and not a single one hesitated.

Screams filled the station, shouts of concern and confusion becoming agonised and desperate. These creatures were driven entirely by something of hunger, latching onto the nearest living body and sinking teeth and nails into flesh, tearing as much away as possible until the one that they held beneath them was shaking and spasming with uncontrollable seizures.

Like robots, they found their feet each time, seizures fading and giving them strength enough to withstand the violent twitching. Then, as though controlled by a different being, like following commands with no other choice, they locked their sights on another panicked human, turning to run and flee the massacre, and chased them down. Beating hearts, blood-filled veins, and warm skin to sink their teeth into.

 

-

 

The first few screams they heard were brushed off. The start of a party, a few kids playing out on the street: there was a number of things it could have been. He rolled the dice, frowning. Four. Craig leant forward, grin on his face as he moved Tyler’s piece four places.

“Get fucked!” He fist-pumped, the little blue box sitting in a red circle on the board, marked with a skull. “Last strike: you’re dead!” The gloating tone of his voice had Tyler playfully rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. I meant to-” His words cut short.

Another scream rang through the air. Louder. Harsher. A sound of unrelenting terror.

Tyler looked to Craig, eyes wide and readable. What the fuck was making someone scream like that? But the sound didn’t come just once. Another scream. And another. Scream after scream. They bled into one another, each different voice chorusing in varying tones.

So many people were screaming, drawing closer. Screams of terror. Screams of fear. Screams for help, for rescue, for saviour.

Tyler stumbled to his feet, slow and cautious. He pulled the curtain aside to reveal the evening light, shining down on the town. He could see a mass of people down the street, running this way and that, stumbling, screaming, launching at one another.

For every person running, there was another person chasing. He noticed quickly that people were splattered with red. The chasers were covered in blood, wounds on their legs, arms, necks. The ones being chased seemed to have had better luck.

He watched in awed horror, unable to believe what he was seeing. It was terrible. Awful. Something out of a sick horror movie with no happy ending. He could hardly tell who was attacking who, he couldn’t tell why.

A woman broke away from the mess, blood down her arms, splattering her face. He recognised her, a fellow student from school. There was nothing he could do from where he stood. A man even bloodier than she was with a large wound on his neck, raced after her, chasing her ten metres down the street before lunging. He got a grasp on her ankle, sending her crashing to the street.

She screamed and wailed, flipping over and landing a kick to the man’s face but he barely even reacted. From what Tyler could see his teeth were bared and his movements, although seemingly uncontrolled, were direct and focused. He let out a scream of his own, back curled like an animal. The screech didn’t sound human: guttural and vile. Then he threw himself down and locked his mouth around as much of her leg as he could fit.

She threw her head back and screamed. He ripped his head back up, a chunk of meat and flesh filling his mouth and painting his face bloody red. His eyes were wide and open as the woman under him writhed and cried, a seizure overcoming her.

His eyes were bright white. No pupil. No iris. Bright, fucking white.

Tyler gasped, stumbling back from the window and yanking the curtains shut.

Craig’s eyes were wide. Fear. Confusion. Trembling lips parted to ask something but Tyler jerked his head, pressing the length of his finger to his own lips. He was fast and silent as he closed the door and covered the second window with the curtains. When he sat down in front of Craig again, the boy was pale and breathing hard.

“What’s going on?” he whispered, gasping with every breath. Screaming echoed outside the house, too close, too loud.

Tyler caught Craig’s arm and pulled him closer, allowing the boy to tuck his face into his neck and focus on his breathing. “I don’t know,” he whispered back, barely audible as he pressed a kiss to Craig’s head. Another scream; he flinched. “Something… something bad, but we just have to stay here. I don’t know what’s happening to people out there but they’re… we just need to stay here and stay quiet.” He wanted to tell his boyfriend that it was going to be okay, he wanted to reassure him, tell him that they’d be perfectly fine: but he didn’t know that. He didn’t know anything at all and he didn’t want to make a promise he couldn’t keep.

He dug his phone out of his pocket, dialling 9-1-1 and pressing it to his ear.

All he heard was a long, droning tone. No connection. No nothing.

His blood chilled.

He put the phone down and held Craig tightly, carding fingers through his hair. He had to be strong. He had to be calm. The boy in his arms was terrified, shaking with fear of the unknown, of the screaming, of the pain he heard outside their window. Tyler closed his eyes. He had to be strong… “We’ll just wait until morning and see what’s going on, okay? We don’t want to take a risk and end up… getting hurt.”

The boy nodded against his shoulder, whispering a small: “Okay.”

They climbed into the large bed, curling up together in the dark. The screaming carried on long into the night. Neither of them slept for hours.

Scream after scream after scream.

Tyler’s mind drifted. He thought of his parents who were out of town for the week on a holiday trip with friends. Where were they? Were they safe? He thought about what he had seen, what he had heard, what he continued to hear. He didn’t dare call them zombies: this was real life, not a video game, but the way the man had chased that woman down and tore the flesh from her leg…

He tried not to shudder.

At one in the morning, the screams died down. No more sounds of terror. Was there anyone else left to feel terror? The sounds of growling and gurgling lingered though, soft and hard to hear but always there.

At two-thirty, Craig finally fell asleep. His breathing evened out, body slumped against Tyler’s. Soft snores left his mouth. Tyler smiled when he brushed a few long strands of hair from Craig’s peaceful face.

His head hurt with his racing thoughts but he knew he had to do something. Craig was asleep, the outside was silent: he had to get them ready for anything.

Maybe they would be rescued, maybe they would wake up from this nightmare, maybe everyone would wake up just fine and healthy… But if they didn’t… they needed to prepare for the worst-case scenario. His touch was gentle as he eased Craig back on the bed, untangling the two of them and standing. He was careful to stay clear from the windows and held breath as he made his way down the staircase.

Down the hall, he locked the front door. He sucked in a breath when he heard a groan from just outside, pressing himself against the wall and waiting for what seemed like an hour. Feet shuffled away and he stayed low, heading for his parents bedroom.

The gun-case was in the closet, locked with a key Tyler’s father had probably taken with him. The window was clear, no one in the front yard or visible to him. He slipped inside the closet and shut the doors. Moonlight slipped through the slats of the closet doors, making the glass gleam.

He clenched his teeth. _Three, two, one_ … He slammed the point of the high-heel stiletto into the glass and flinched hard as it shattered around his feet.

A screech released into the night air, the slam of a body against the wooden front door repeating several times as Tyler pressed himself to the closet wall and breathed shallow and soundlessly. His heartbeat slammed in his chest. He kept his fingers curled tightly around the shotgun.

There he waited. Minutes rolled by and the creature gave up, growling and gurgling as it shuffled around in the front garden. Through the slats of the closet door Tyler could see the shadow dancing across the carpet, outlined by moonlight. The window revealed the room in all its glory, curtains undrawn. Should something be looking in, he would undoubtedly be seen and he didn’t want to test the strength or determination of these creatures on the other side of a thin glass pane.

Minutes on minutes on minutes. He had no idea what the time was, he had no watch and his phone was still upstairs. There was no way of him to know as he watched the shadow flicker back and forth.

‘Better safe than sorry’ had never been so relevant.

His eyes remained peering through the slats. He didn’t move. Until finally the shadow blinked out of existence and the moonlight remained undisrupted on the carpet. And still, he waited.

It was a long number of minutes before he risked opening the door. Slow and careful: he paused for any sounds of alarm or threat. Peaking his head out, he spotted the body of the creature, hunched over and swaying from side to side. It stood with its back to the window, right by the front gate. It hobbled this way and that but didn’t turn.

He was fast and silent in getting out of the room and into the kitchen. He filled his arms up with cans and bottles and packets, making as little sound as he possibly could, before slipping back up the stairs and into the bedroom.

The hallway creaked and he paused, but didn’t hear another sound. The door clicked shut almost silently. He set the food and the gun down by the end of the bed. And when he hopped back beneath the covers alongside his undisturbed boyfriend, Craig instantly cuddled into his chest and mumbled something that Tyler didn’t catch.

Tyler just smiled, curling his arms tightly around the boy he was falling in love with.

And to the soft whispers of groans and growls from the street below, he drifted off to sleep as well.

 

 

 **Linneus, Maine**  
28 th of February  
05:42pm

The rifle shot went off, startling the bird from its branch but not fast enough as the bullet drove into the side of its head. It dropped to the brush and Luke lowered the rifle, grin on his face.

“Nice shot,” Jon chirped, trying not to gawk at his brother’s almost perfect aim. “I dunno how you do that so good!”

Luke grinned, his brother’s thoughtful tone always one to make him smile. “You have a shot. See that tree there? The hole in it? Try get the bullet into that hole.” He pointed for emphasis and smiled fondly as the fourteen-year old fumbled with the gun. He slid the bolt forward and backwards, the shell jumping out. He raised it up, squinting his eyes and lining it up as best as he could. “Breathe,” Luke reminded. Inhale, exhale. The shaky finger rested on the trigger..

A scream ripped through the clear air of the forest from the direction of town, startling a flock of birds from the trees above and Jon who jumped and pulled the trigger. The bullet fired up into the foliage but neither boy noticed. They turned to each other with alarm in their eyes.

“What was that?” Fear trembled in Jon’s voice.

“I don’t know.”

Luke grabbed Jon’s rifle and looped both guns over his shoulder. With a steady grip on his brother’s hand, he ran through the trees as more shrieks and screams bounced towards them.

 _Mom. Dad._ Luke’s mind was focused as they bolted for home, smacking through branches and bushes without care. Jon kept up with the sprint, always fast like his brother. At the edge of the forest, Luke turned to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. Eyes sharp and commanding. “Stay here. Don’t fuckin’ move until I get back and if anything happens: run.”

Jon’s cheeks were rosy from running and his eyes were wide with fear, but he nodded. Luke pushed one of the guns into his hands. One last look of concern before he turned and darted to back door of their house. Another scream echoed from the street, desperate and terrified.

He peered through the windows, looking into his own bedroom, his parents’, the hallway: he couldn’t see anything or anyone. The grass crunched under his shoes as he slipped around the side of the house instead, staying low and listening hard. Stepping up onto an old chair, he peaked over the gate.  

A man lay flat on his back in the middle of the street. Two kids, no older than ten years old each, crouched on top of him and Luke stared in horror. He could see the mess of blood around each child’s mouth as they repetitively ducked down to dig their teeth into the man’s arms and shoulders. With too much strength for such young children, they ripped pieces of flesh from his body. The man shook and convulsed, but neither child seemed bothered. They tore at skin and muscle and swallowed it all down.

“What the fuck,” he murmured under his breath.

Then another scream, except this one from behind and familiar.

 _Jon_. In his alarm, he unbalanced himself and the leg of the chair he stood on snapped. Although he caught himself it didn’t stop the two children who had snapped their heads toward him, eyes wide and bright white. He saw no pupils. Their faces were painted with blood. Two screeches of threat but Luke was no longer looking. He bolted back to the backyard, eyes landing on Jon staggering back away from a man, hunched over and growling, prowling closer.

“Luke!” Jon shrieked. He pulled the trigger of his gun and missed. The man lunged. His hands fell short, Jon tripping and falling in his desperation to get away. But the bullet landed right above the man’s ear and he fell to the grass, unmoving. Big blue eyes snapped up, brimming with tears and terrified as Luke sprinted to his side. “Luke, h- he- it’s-” But shrieks and howls were following them from the street as two young children, bloodied and shaking broke through the gate in pursuit.

“Jon, we have to go _now_ ,” he grabbed his brother’s arm but the boy pulled back.

“Luke, please-” Shaking fingers pointed to the man Luke had stopped from killing Jon. His heart dropped. Blood dripped over the wide white eyes that centred their father’s face.

Luke had killed his father. His father had been a second away from harming Jon.

He had killed his own father.

“Was he a-”

A louder screech sounded behind them. “Jon, _RUN!”_ Snatching the gun from his hands, Luke shoved his younger brother and took off behind him. Back into the trees, winding and weaving down paths they knew off by heart. They could hear the bodies in pursuit, crashing through branches and falling through bushes.

Neither one looked back. Neither one stopped.

Jon ran with tears streaming down his face but didn’t fall behind for even a second. He stayed right at Luke’s side. He didn’t stumble. He just kept running. They both did.


	3. Get Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGERS:  
> \- gore  
> \- violence  
> \- panic attack

**Courtland, Virginia.**  
1 st of March  
06:48am 

Craig was the first to wake. He laid in the silence for a while, disorientated and dazed. His eyes stung when they opened, the brilliance of the sunrise seeping through the thin curtains.

It took him a long few moments to recollect what exactly had happened the night before.

The screaming. The fear in Tyler’s eyes. The endless hours of terror. When had he fallen asleep? He didn’t know. But no matter the situation, the fear, the future; with his back to Tyler’s chest and those warm arms around him, he felt safe.

He let his eyes fall shut and drifted. No screaming. No moaning. From where he laid he heard nothing and as the sun rose and the room grew brighter, he awoke again to Tyler laying gentle kisses up the back of his neck.

He smiled.

The two had only been dating a couple of months, having been friends for several years. It was an accident when Tyler had drunkenly confessed to wanting a New Years Kiss from Craig at the ridiculously wild Christmas party they’d gone to. He had, of course, forgotten but Craig (in his mild sobriety) hadn’t and spent the night of New Year’s Eve by Tyler’s side, keeping him just as sober no matter how much the taller boy complained.

He wanted that night to be remembered by both of them.

When they sat atop Tyler’s roof and counted down together, Craig smiled when pulling Tyler in for a kiss. “What did- How do- Wh-” Tyler stammered and stuttered when he pulled away, cheeks bright red.

Craig had just smiled, pecking the boy he adored on the lips again. “Your drunk self likes to give away your secrets,” he had whispered and Tyler, in embarrassed frustration and a lack of legible thought, pulled him back in for a firm, longer kiss. He memorised the shape and the taste of Craig’s lips and took him out on several dates over the following winter month.

The apocalypse was definitely a curveball thrown into their relationship.

“Morning,” he whispered, letting his head tilt back so Tyler could press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Did you get any sleep?”

A gentle nod. “A little. I went and got my dad’s gun and some food a few hours ago.” The words were groggy and tired, murmured into the side of Craig’s neck.

“You got what?” Craig’s shock was dialled down with a self-reminder to be quiet but he rolled over to face his boyfriend in emphasis. “You didn’t wake me up!?” he hissed.

“You needed sleep. And I was fine, I’m sneaky.” Tyler pulled Craig close again, refusing to open his eyes more than a squint as he buried his face into Craig’s neck.

Craig rolled his eyes. “You’re the clumsiest person I know.”

“Not when I’m hiding from zombies, I’m not.”

A thoughtless comment.

A thoughtful hum.

“Zombies? That’s what we’re callin’ them?”

“At seven-thirty in the morning, I’ll call ‘em what I want.”

By the time Craig managed to coax Tyler up and out of bed it was midmorning. The two didn’t leave the room other than going to the bathroom and were too scared to even flush the toilet, dare it attract starving attention. Tyler tried to call several different numbers but couldn’t connect to anything. He couldn’t even get internet on his laptop.

Craig spent an hour fiddling with a radio, getting a few stray words here and there in the oceans and oceans of static. They couldn’t put anything together: no information.

“Do you think someone will come and find us?” He didn’t mean for his voice to sound so hopeless, placing the radio down and leaning back against the side of the bed. He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed.

Tyler closed his laptop. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t think they will.” Blunt. Tyler couldn’t say he didn’t agree. Craig crawled over to the window, peering out the corner over the street. People aimlessly wondered, mouths agape, white eyes open. People he had grown up alongside, people that weren’t really people anymore. Old classmates, teachers, neighbours. Those who he had waved to on the street or served at work.

Zombies.

It felt too unreal to say. This was reality, not some science-fiction book. Zombies weren’t supposed to be possible so what was he seeing walking across the street, bumping into each other, twitching and spasming.

They weren’t human. Not anymore.

“So, what do you think we should do then?” Tyler’s question dripped of sarcasm, but Craig knew him better than to miss the underlying tone of hopelessness.

Craig shrugged. “Get out of here before every person in this country becomes what they are.” One last glance to the street below before he sat back against the wall.

No response. Tyler stayed silent in his thought. He grabbed an apple from the bag he’d snatched last night, throwing one to his boyfriend and taking a bite out of one himself. He didn’t want to admit that Craig was right. He didn’t want to think about trying to leave town.

Running? Wasn’t an option. Sneaking by was too risky; there were too many of them. Killing them was definitely not an option either. Two against several hundred? No chance.

How could they get away?

The rest of the day was spent in mostly silence. They ate when they needed to and kept close to one another out of comfort. When evening fell and nothing had changed, neither mentioned the sick feeling in their stomach. Dread.

They curled back up in bed, cold air filling the room with the darkness of night. Tyler carded his fingers through Craig’s hair. Eventually sleep took Craig, pulling him down where he lay curled up against Tyler’s chest. Tyler stayed awake as long as he could. But even he couldn’t resist being dragged into the depths of slumber.

It was a car engine that woke them at 02:00am

“Tyler,” Craig hissed, shaking the boy awake with wide eyes. “Someone’s here!”

They were both by the window in seconds, peering out into the pitch black. The car’s motor rumbled from the distance, drawing closer and drawing attention.

“Fuck,” Tyler murmured. Screeches tore through the air. Alert. Warning. Someone was here, someone _alive_.

The car turned onto their street and Craig gasped as the mass of undead scrambled out from where they had been wandering and searching for anything new. Something new was here now, something edible.

In seconds, the car was swarmed. Headlights were covered in bodies. Undead clawed at the windows, at the metal. It couldn’t drive any further. The car horn was loud but ineffective. Tyler and Craig couldn’t even see into the car.

“Hey, get the fuck-!” Perhaps one had wound down a window. The shout was strong and scared but cut off with a scream. Craig ducked his head. Tyler watched in horror. A man was dragged from the car, hands reaching and clawing; desperate for a piece of him. His shouting became screaming.

Another shriek released, a thin body clambering into the car through the agape window. Blood curdling. Desperate for any kind of help, anyone, anything.

It was too late.

Craig rested his forehead against the windowsill, eyes squeezed shut. Tyler couldn’t look away. Scream after scream after scream from the woman trapped inside. Her death was inevitable. It was not quick. There was nothing they could do but watch and wait for it to be over.

The same thought ran through their heads.

 _What if that’s us in two days, in a week, in a month. What if we don’t even make it that far_.

Tyler couldn’t bear to think of Craig like that. Terrified, screaming, his last feelings and thoughts overridden with agony. He’d do anything in his power to avoid that. He would protect him with everything he could.

With an exhausted body and a cold heart, he stood and pulled Craig up to his feet. The last scream rung through the air before silence. Growling and screeching slowed. The car engine continued to rumble; there was no one to turn it off.

“Hey,” Tyler lifted Craig’s face with his fingers, the younger boy opening his eyes and letting tears slip down his cheeks. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” A promise. “We will get out of this mess and I’ll do fuckin’ everything I can to keep you safe, okay?” He brushed away the tears with his thumb, examining the face of the boy he was falling in love with. He never wanted to forget it.

“Okay.” Craig could hardly whisper, one shaking hand curled around Tyler’s wrist and one held onto his shirt. “Okay.”

Silence, suffocating silence. Tyler leaned down and pressed his lips to Craig’s. Slow, gentle; he brushed his thumb along his cheekbone in reassurance. “I love you, Craig.” A second promise.

Hazel eyes glimmered. Unhealable sadness mixed in with the awed love he felt for Tyler. The words resonated between both of them. Unspoken, unheard: it was so easy for them to slip off Tyler’s tongue and he knew it was simply because they were true.

He couldn’t help it. Craig pulled him back in for another kiss, fresh tears slipping down his cheeks. “I love you too,” he whispered against Tyler’s lips, unable to choke down his sobbing. There was no resistance when Tyler lead him backwards, pulling him back down into the bed beside him. Tugging the blankets up, he pulled his lover close and pressed kisses to the top of his head until he drifted off to sleep.

Tyler didn’t. He stayed awake. Thinking.

They needed a plan.

 

 

 **Linneus, Maine**  
1 st of March  
05:02am

They’d run for what they could only assume was hours before Jon had fallen. His foot had caught on a tree root and sent him straight to the dirt. “I can’t keep going,” he had rasped out, heart throbbing and chest aching. The night air was cold

Luke knew he was right. “Okay, we’ll take a break.” Sat side-by-side against a tree, neither mentioned Jon’s sobbing. Luke curled an arm around his shoulders and let him cry, holding his own heavy heart for as long as he could. Their own father had tried to hurt Jon. Their own father was dead.

What was going on?

Their break became a lot more when the two brothers had fallen asleep and when Luke opened his eyes again sunrise was peaking down at them through the trees. He dropped a curse beneath his breath, unwrapping his arm from his brother.

The boy leant against him, sleeping deeply and muttering to himself every few minutes.

 **No service**.

Well that hadn’t been a surprise. If they did manage to get service so far out in the bush Luke would have been shocked, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed when he slipped his phone back into his pocket. They couldn’t call for help, they couldn’t find out where they were…

“Luke…” The groggy voice of his brother drew his attention back. Sleepy blue eyes blinked him back into reality, back into the forest where they sat at five in the morning. “Do you know where we are?” A short shake of the head. “What’s going on?” Hopeful.

Luke shook his head again. “I dunno, Jonathan.” He heard his brother’s stomach growl and the boy winced. They had no food. They had nothing. “C’mon, we gotta keep walking and we’ll come out the other side eventually, okay? We’ll find a town, get some help and get some food.”

Jon took his hand, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. They had a lot of walking ahead of them and the teenager already looked like he was going to fall over again. Luke just hoped that they weren’t too far from town.

-

Thankfully, they weren’t. Within the next hour the came across a road, following it for another ten or twenty minutes before they found themselves at the edge of a town. Jon immediately noticed that there was an issue. People stood out on the street, some moving around, some standing still. Yet no one was talking or in groups: they were just… there…

“Luke? What’s wrong with them?” Jon whispered as they drew close to the house on the edge of town. They ducked around the hedge and hovered by the side of the building out of sight.

Jon watched the closest person, her back to them as she shuffled forward a few steps. When she rocked back and forth on her feet and turned, Jon had to choke back his gasp.

White eyes. Soulless eyes. The same eyes his father had had when he had tried to attack Jon. “Why is-”

“It’s like everyone at home,” Luke murmured, quiet in precaution as they snuck around the back of the house. “I dunno what’s wrong with ‘em but they’re dangerous. We don’t want them to see us.”

Stopping at a window, Jon hopelessly pushed on it and stumbled when it surprisingly swung inwards. He hadn’t expected it to open but he was sure thankful as Luke gave him a leg up and the two pulled themselves into the empty bedroom. Once in, Luke cocked his gun and pressed the length of his finger to his lips.

Jon nodded, and followed as Luke snuck down the hallway, peering into each room. The house was silent.

“Find a bag: we’ll grab as much food as we can.” He followed the order, holding one of the guns unsteadily as he dipped into the laundry room and opened up the cupboards. Digging under blankets and pillows, he found a few old shopping bags and pulled them out.

He stood guard inside the front door while Luke loaded them with cans, bottles and packets of food. Everything he could fit from the pantry he bagged up in the three cotton bags, and once finished they both peered out the window.

A Jeep Wrangler sat on the driveway out the front of their house and Jon looked to Luke. Worry swirled in his baby blues. Would they be able to reach it in time? There were people _everywhere_ (if they could be called people anymore). What would they do? How fast would they be?

“We have to go for the Jeep.” His tone was just as grim as Jon’s thoughts and the boy felt fear stream through his veins.

He sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. Do we got a plan?”

Luke carded his fingers through his hair. He examined as much of the front garden as he could, white picket fence bordering the grassy area and brick driveway open to the street. “Stay low and move fast. I dunno how smart they are, I dunno if they’ll notice we’re not infected, but we just have to get to the car. Hold the gun over your shoulder, take a bag. I’ll go first and get on the other side of the car. Then you come. Just get to the passenger seat and lock your door. I’ll shoot any down if they get close and once you’re in, we’ll get the fuck out of here. Got it?”

His words were hushed, fast-spoken but clear. Jon took it all in. His hands were shaking. “Got it,” he whispered. Luke nodded, tugging Jon close. He pressed a kiss to the top of his head. It was rough and fast, but it meant more than any: “I love you.”

Jon knew.

It was go time. Luke held the keys between his fingers, two bags over his arm and gun held and loaded in his other hand. He slowly and silently opened the door, easing it back just enough to be able to see onto the street.

He left it ajar and Jon held his breath, fists clenched. He watched his brother stay close as he could to the wall of the house, eyes on the car as he crouched low and darted to the back of the vehicle. He slipped around the side, out of sight from the street, and met Jon’s eye through the window. A short sharp nod.

Jon bit back the tidal wave of terror. There was no time for hesitation. There was no such thing as second chances.

So, he grabbed his bag and held tightly onto his gun. Slipping out through the gap in the door, every cell in his body screamed at him to go back. He was too exposed. There were too many of those _things_. It took one wrong step, one breath too loud, or even just a random turn of the head for him to be noticed by one-

Five steps out of the house, nearing the back of the car, he jumped in fear as a primal screech tore through the air. “Jon, go!” Luke hissed as the younger boy glanced over his shoulder. White eyes, white eyes, white eyes!

He bolted for the passenger seat as blood-splattered, white-eyed creatures scampered towards him. The car unlocked. Luke’s gun fired over the car’s bonnet. Jon slammed the door shut and caught the keys that Luke threw onto the seat, firing two more shots as a body slammed into Jon’s car door.

At least a hundred of those fucking monsters were swarming towards them, sprinting down the street, releasing howls and screams that had shivers running down Jon’s spine.

The boy leaned over and jammed the keys into the ignition. “Luke, get in!” he shouted, the engine roaring to life as hands clawed at the windows and a child with bright white eyes clambered up onto the bonnet.

Luke blew its brains out, the body collapsing as he hauled himself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.

“Go, go, go!” Jon cried, shrinking back in his seat as his window was blocked out by bloody faces with bared teeth. Luke clenched his jaw, slamming the gearstick into drive and pressing down the accelerator. “Fuck!” Jon shouted, both hands coming up to cover his mouth in horror as the car shoved multiple bodies to the ground and rolled right over them.

The sounds were sickening.

Luke cringed, spinning the wheel, but didn’t let up on the accelerator as the car took off down the road, back the way Jon and Luke had walked. The second creature to have crawled onto the bonnet hung on for a few moments, snarling and clawing at the windshield. Others chased, trying to get a hold of the vehicle, trying to do anything that would keep them close to their live prey.

None managed, and with a hard swerve, Luke sent the creature on the bonnet flying to the road before pressing the pedal all the way down and roaring down the highway. Jon didn’t drop his hands. He couldn’t stop the sounds from replaying in his mind.

The crunching of bodies beneath the car. The thump of the front slamming into them. The screeches they released, the wails of desperation. Those damn white eyes.

He squeezed his own eyes shut, feeling tears slip down his cheeks. He didn’t speak. Neither did Luke. There was nothing left to say.

They drove in silence, running from the sun and chasing the disease that plagued the country. They just had to find somewhere they could stay. Somewhere that hadn’t been touched, somewhere that had people like him and Luke. Somewhere they would be safe.

 

 

 **Courtland, Virginia.**  
2 nd of March  
03:21am

Craig woke to Tyler’s hands on his shoulders, shaking lightly. “Craig, c’mon. We’re leaving.” Soft, urgent words. Hazel eyes blinked, pushing away the craving for a longer sleep.

“Hm-?” he mumbled, letting himself be pulled upright.

It was dark in the room, it was dark outside: that was a strong enough sign that Craig was not supposed to be awake.

“Everything’s ready. You can sleep in the car but we… we need to go now while it’s still dark. It’ll give us a better chance, c’mon.” A strong arm slipped around his waist, pulling him onto his feet and leading him from the room. Careful and slow, Tyler lead him down the staircase and to the open door leading into the garage.

When his eyes adjusted to the dark, Craig could see how full the car was. Blankets, pillows, bags of food and supplies. The car itself was a seven-seater, but the back five seats had been laid down to make room for everything. Confused eyes blinked up at Tyler.

“When did you do this?” he murmured, letting himself be pushed around to the passenger seat.

Tyler hummed. “I couldn’t sleep, and you were right: we do need to leave. The sooner the better. We need to find somewhere safe for us to stay, where there aren’t any infected.”

A slow nod. The door clicked when it opened, and Craig climbed up into the seat, cuddling up with the pillow waiting for him there. Tyler had been organised. The boy dipped back inside the house, collecting the last few things before reappearing with the keys in hand. He silently popped into the driver’s seat and Craig blinked up at the closed roller door that kept them inside the garage.

“How do you suppose we get out of here without alerting the whole town within the thirty seconds it takes to open this thing?” Craig drawled, rubbing his eyes.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Tyler instructing, doing his own up.

Craig blinked. “Really? Road safety? Right now?” His craving for sleep was slowly fading as he blinked over his shoulder at the boxes and bags of supplies in the back of the car.

“Yes, Craig, don’t make me do it for you.” Tyler snapped his fingers and Craig rolled his eyes, doing up his belt. “We’re going to drive through it.”

“We’re _what_!?”

Tyler nodded, eyes straight ahead and grimace tight. This was the dumbest shit of an idea they could have come up with, but Craig knew that it was the easiest and fastest way they were going to make it out of this shitty situation.

“Ready?” Tyler asked.

Craig didn’t feel tired in the slightest anymore. Anxiety crept up his throat. “No,” he muttered, knowing it didn’t mean anything for this situation. It didn’t matter.

Tyler inhaled. “Hold on,” he mumbled, knuckles white around the steering wheel. With a final glance to craig, he twisted the key in the ignition and flinched at the start of the engine. It sounded so loud to them, contrasted to the silence they’d learnt to live in.

Exhale, he shoved the pedal down and the car leapt forwards. The crash was ear-splitting, metal slammed into metal. It ripped the roller door right off its wheels, tearing it off the walls with a piercing screech, and carrying it down the driveway before the large pieces of metal fell off the windshield to reveal the darkness of the street.

White eyes glowed from all around, reflecting bared teeth as growls and howls released into the cold air. Craig gripped the edge of his seat as Tyler spun the wheel. A body slammed into the front of the car, hands dragging across the metal of the bonnet in hopes of purchase but finding nothing.

Craig couldn’t watch as the body caught beneath the vehicle. He heard the crunch of the bones collapsing beneath the weight of the wheels, the car rocking side to side.

“Tyler, go!”

Another body slamming against metal, the bloodied woman slamming her face repeatedly against Craig’s window as the boy gasped and pressed back into his seat. “Shit, shit,” Tyler murmured, pressing his foot down harder as the engine revved.

“Tyler, fucking-”

“I’m going!” Tyler slammed the hand-break off, grinding his teeth. The car lurched, roaring to life and mowing down the number of undead that had scrambled in front of the wheels. “Fucking _shit_ ,” he muttered to himself as he swerved between the white-eyed creatures, unable to avoid hitting some as he sped down each street as fast as he could without rolling the car around each corner.

Craig’s short sharp gasps only grew more and more shallow, panic flushing his system. His fingers were white from how tightly he gripped his seat. His eyes were wide and terrified.

Tyler risked a glance at Craig: a glimpse, but long enough to see the distress his boyfriend was suffocating in.

“Hey,” he murmured, returning his stare to the road to swerve around the few snarling children that scrambled towards the car like moths to a lamp’s glow. When Craig didn’t respond, he reached a hand over the console and slid it down the boy’s arm until he came to the fingers that gripped the leather. “Craig. Hey, focus on me.” Short careful tugs. The fingers released, allowing themselves to be linked up with Tyler’s. They squeezed hard, nails pressing into the older boy’s skin. He didn’t flinch.

Craig’s hyperventilating didn’t falter but terrified hazel eyes snapped onto the concentrated frown on Tyler’s face.

“Craig, you gotta breathe, baby.” He spun the wheel easily with one hand, Craig’s fingers tightening in fear as they hit another body. “We’re nearly out of here. So close; take a really deep breath for me.” He ran the pad of his thumb gently along the stretch of Craig’s wrist, speaking low and calmly.

Craig’s chest heaved, trying to hold onto his breath for more than half a second. He gasped as Tyler swerved, and clutched at his chest where his heart pounded. Tyler turned the corner, revealing an open road that passed a gas station and lead out of the town.

A few more houses to pass. They reached the highway. No more bodies, no more screeching, no more white eyes. Tyler sighed, sinking back into his chair as he flicked on cruise control and let the car do the work.

“Hey. Craig. Look at me,” he murmured, steadying the wheel before meeting his boyfriend’s eyes for a long few seconds. Craig was wheezing with his short sharp gasps, eyes fluttering as he gripped the door and Tyler’s hand equally as tightly. “We did it.” A gentle smile, a glance back to the road before blue eyes returned to Craig. “We made it out, we’re safe – nothing’s going to get you or me, okay?”

Craig squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Too fast. Too sharp. Too short.

The car swerved, slowing down to a stop before Tyler shoved the car in park, turned in his seat and took both of Craig’s hands. When the younger boy opened his eyes, he saw only love, concern and care in his boyfriend’s eyes. “Craig, focus on me, okay? Breathe with me, focus on what you can feel not what you’re thinking. You are _safe_.” He squeezed the two shaking hands before releasing one, cupping Craig’s face. Craig leaned into the touch. Eyes closing again as he drew his breaths out.

Lips pressed to his forehead, Tyler leaning over the console, and he felt his slamming heartbeat gradually slowing down. The hand on his face and the fingers in his continued to reassure him, Tyler mumbling soft words here and there as they shared the space in the silent morning.

“Hey,” Tyler murmured, coaxing Craig’s eyes opened. He nodded at the road ahead, Craig turning to see what he was motioning too. Colours reached up over the horizon, bright and chasing the darkness away. Oranges, yellows, some pinks and purples too; Craig followed each trail of quiet colour with his eyes, loving the look of it painted across the sky. “I haven’t seen a sunrise in years.”

Craig exhaled, heartbeat fading out of his awareness as he admired the colours. “It’s beautiful,” he mumbled, Tyler squeezing his fingers and smiling at his love. Craig returned it, weak. His whole body felt heavy and tired, the seat enveloping him in warmth.

He couldn’t tell what was prettier: Tyler’s eyes or the sunset but after a long few minutes of examining, he had to go with the pretty blue crystals he found himself lost in. He leant forward and Tyler smiled, knowing what he wanted. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Craig’s.

A simple kiss. A slow kiss. Basking in the colours of the sunrise.

“Where are we gonna go?” Craig murmured, falling back into his seat as Tyler returned his hand to the wheel. He put the car back in gear, pulling back onto the road.

He shrugged. “’m not sure yet.”

Craig nodded slowly, curling his arms around the pillow he had.

“We have enough food to last us a number of days, if not a week or so. We’ll just… try and find somewhere safe.” He returned his free hand to Craig’s, craving that little bit of contact while they drove. Craig could see he was keeping up a brave face, he was trying not to think too much into it because, although Tyler would deny it, Craig knew he was scared too.

Of course, he was. They both were; anyone would be in this situation.

But Tyler was going to try and stay strong for himself just as much as Craig.

With his thoughts circling the boy he loved so dearly, Craig rested his head to the window and hugged his knees to his chest, fingers linked loosely with Tyler. “I love you,” he murmured, not even noticing the words escaping from his thoughts. His eyes stayed closed, mind heavy with exhaustion.

He was asleep before Tyler got the chance to return them, smile curved into his lips.


	4. Kensington

**Kensington, Kansas**   
**3 rd of March**   
**11:20am**

They knew what was coming. The first day of the month it was broadcasted everywhere, on every TV channel, every radio station, printed on every newspaper. All the way down in Kansas, they heard what was coming.

People infected with a disease that made them starving and mindless. Signs to look out for: white eyes, drooling and frothing of the mouth, seizures and uncontrollable moving, growling, howling and screeching. No cure known. If encountered, the best course of action was to run, hide and stay quiet. Apparently, bullets did nothing unless they hit the brain and the infection was spread through the mix of saliva and blood: their impulses lead them to act cannibalistic.

The entirety of Kensington was chilled in fear.

On the second day of the month, connection dropped. For everything. Radio towers no longer got any signals. Television screens showed nothing but static. Phonelines were down too. They couldn’t hear anything from out of town and they couldn’t get anything to anyone else outside of Kensington.

But at least they knew what was coming, at least they were ready.

Or so they had thought.

The town held a meeting on the third day of the month. Everyone eighteen and older were obliged to attend, a couple hundred crowding into the town hall. They spent three hours discussing what was happening in their country and making a plan to keep their homes and families safe. With so little information, it wasn’t easy. But they did what they could and those in charge made decisions on behalf of the rest of them.

Five older teens lazed around in the basement of Scotty’s house. Low moods and conflicted feelings, conversation was fleeting and grim. They hated not being able to go to the meeting: they hated not knowing what was going on. They weren’t kids.

They were all friends from school, the town only having one high-school because of the small population: there were little under five hundred people in the town. Everyone knew everyone. The age group of sixteen to nineteen-year-olds spent most of their free time, and time at school (for those still there), together.

It was a nuisance to have their group split by the difference of being adult and not, when they were all so similar in maturity. There didn’t really seem like a difference at all.

It sucked to be treated like kids.

“You know, they’ll tell us what happens,” Evan murmured, head falling back on the couch’s armrest. He gazed up at the ceiling, hearing an irritated grunt from Scotty in response. “They won’t leave us in the dark like the adults: they know we’re old enough to know what they know.”

The soft sounds of the tennis ball hitting the wall followed, mocking them for being children, for being so young. Scotty sighed, holding onto it for a long few moments and breaking the rhythm. It continued right after as he spoke. “They’re adults too, dumbass. And we’re still ‘kids’. That’s why they’re at the stupid meeting and we’re not.”

Chrissy cleared her throat, eyes closed where she sat on the floor with Simone’s fingers winding through her hair. She blinked, lazily gazing over to Scott as her hair was twisted into perfect, neat braids. “Who knows what they’ll tell us,” she murmured, feeling bitterness drip from her tongue. A huff of agreement from Scotty, then the thud of the tennis ball. And again.

Daithi didn’t say a word. He was hardly paying attention to the other four as he fiddled with the play-station controller and kept his eyes on the screen. His glasses were slightly askew, Evan noticed, but either he didn’t realise, or he didn’t care for them. Daithi was always a little more separate from the others, although being a part of their crew: he was quiet and reserved. More into study than socialising: no one cared to judge but he was always welcome and included.

Evan let his eyes return to the ceiling, head lolling back.

“We’ve been friends for years: they know we’re not kids. They’ll tell us,” Simone promised, voice lulling and accent pretty. She was a soft girl, all smiles with her British accent. She contrasted to girl sitting on the floor in front of her, who was crude, brash and careless. The two surprisingly got along fine, sometimes better than fine. But of the three girls of their crew, Simone was the softer, kinder soul.

Daithi grunted, several pairs of eyes falling to him in curiosity. Perhaps he had something to say? “Ah, fock,” he muttered, frowning at the loading screen as he was sent back to the lobby: killed in his game. Scotty’s tennis ball hit him square in the back of the head and he ducked, turning with a frown. “Oi, th’ fock was tha’ for?” He threw the ball back and Scotty snickered, catching it.

A knock on the front door sounded from upstairs, before it clicked open and Evan shuffled up where he was sitting.

“Down here!” Scott called, spinning around in his desk chair. His eyes remained on the ceiling and Simone sighed as she tied off one of Chrissy’s braids. Sure enough, the other five of their friends trooped slowly down the stairs.

Simone tied off Chrissy’s second braid, the girl tipping her head back to smile in thanks. They held eye contact for a moment before Chrissy dropped her head forward, Evan looking away from her small smile. Five grim faces came into view and they all collapsed around the room on couches, beanbags and the carpet.

Evan’s excitement dampened, their eyes showing that the news they had to share was not going to be good. “What’s wrong?”

Kelly sat down beside Chrissy, Marcel falling face-down onto his beanbag. Ryan and Brock sat on the floor and Brian sat beside Evan on his couch. Scott blinked expectantly as Chrissy ran her fingers over her braids.

“So?” Simone asked, hesitant as her eyes flicked between the newcomers.

Ryan glanced around at them all, Brock’s eyes remaining on the ground. Daithi turned off the game and spun around on his cushion to face the rest of them. Brock sighed. “They’ve assigned… ten people at a time to be at the station waiting every time a train is due in, to check who comes off for injuries. They have guns and that’s it.”

Shared silence. Different thoughts. Different fears.

“Just- just ten?” Simone’s face drained of colour.

Chrissy glared at the carpet. “So, what – a five carriage train rolls up with two hundred zombies in-”

“They’re not zombies,” Marcel interrupted, lifting his head onto his hands to participate in the conversation. “This is real life, not a video game: we have to be realistic,” he corrected.

Chrissy glared, back as straight as a rod. “I _am_ being realistic, asshole. They don’t sleep, they’re cannibalistic, their eyes are fucking white and they pass on the infection through biting. Say what you want, but I’m calling them zombies,” she bit, fire under her tongue. Her fear was very easily converted into aggression. Kelly’s hand settled on her knee, a cool stare meeting hers, before Chrissy sighed and relaxed back against the couch between Simone’s legs. “Ten guns versus two hundred of them: there’s no chance.”

Scotty had stopped throwing the ball. “They’ll be the appetizer and we’ll be the main course,” he murmured.

Brock’s fingers lifted to rub his eyes and Brian just chose to close his, shaking his head.

“They wouldn’t listen to us,” Brock murmured.

Brian grit his teeth, bitterness showing in his snarl. “They think we’re too fockin’ young and stupid an’ ‘stuck in a fantasy world’,” he grumbled. “This is real life!” Brian mimicked, childish voice. His eyes were sharp and angry.

A silence settled over them, Simone’s arms curled around her tummy and teeth worried her bottom lip. “What do we do?” Small, scared.

Evan shrugged, Chrissy hung her head, Daithi looked zoned out. Scotty glanced around, head empty of ideas. Brock just sighed.

Ryan ran his fingers through his hair. “We make a plan and… we do what we can to survive.”

-

The teens spent the day together, discussing and debating what the best plan of action was. The adults were likely keeping their guns close and at the alarm that would ring from the town centre: all over twenty-five years old had the order to leave their houses and fight for the town.

It felt like they were preparing for war. But they didn’t know when the attack would arrive.

Ryan spoke more than anyone, being the oldest alongside Brock. He threw options for plans around as everyone listened. Evan fiddled with a bunch of electronics and materials on the bench at the back of the room. He had Scotty dipping up and down stairs bringing him what he asked for.

“Can I have all your phones now that they’re useless?” he had asked, and in the collective gloomy mood no one bothered to refuse. They couldn’t do anything anyway. They’d be just as well off without them.

After that, no one paid him mind. He listened with one ear.

But by the time the night had fallen, they had their plan. Fear shone in several pairs of eyes, determination in others. They stayed close, keeping to themselves and those they knew best. Kelly and Chrissy sat together on the couch, their hands clasped as they murmured back and forth about their plans for the night.

Simone stayed beside Marcel and he kept his arm tight around her. The two had known one another the longest; sibling-like in their relationship. It had always been like that and anyone could see the protective love Marcel wore in his eyes. “Stay at mine tonight,” he murmured to her and she gave him a tight smile in response. There was no hiding her fear. For herself, for her friends, for her family.

She was terrified.

They all were.

But at least they had known it was coming.

 

 

**Kensington, Kansas**   
**3 rd of March**   
**10:23pm**

It was exactly what they had predicted. The universe was addicted to watching just how much devastation one science experiment could do.

A five-carriage train. Two hundred infected, cannibalistic, killing machines. Late at night with ten half-asleep, untrained forty-year-olds holding guns they didn’t know how to use properly. Their screams were what woke half of the town up. And anyone who didn’t wake was pleasantly ripped out of sleep by the deafening alarm that sounded off into the night.

Every person in Kensington sat up in their beds. Confusion. Realisation. Terror.

Children were locked away in bedrooms, told empty promises as parents ran from houses with guns. The teens waited, as they’d planned. Five minutes exactly as they raided their parents rooms and basements, smashing gun cases and stealing whatever weaponry they could.

Five minutes was up. They were to meet at the high school.

Stepping outside in the open night was one of the most chilling experiences as Simone clutched Marcel’s hand tightly. It felt colder than usual, darker than usual. The screaming was louder outside.

Relentless. Agonised. Predatory.

The two held tightly onto a gun each and ran in the shadows of broken streetlights as quickly as they could. At the corner, they spotted Chrissy and Kelly. All four snuck along the street to the high-school where the others waited.

Scream after scream after scream.

“Okay,” Brock whispered, motioning for the others to get into the shadows. “Everyone up on the roof, one by one. Ryan and I will get you up there. Grabs guns off the others.” Short nods. Pale faces. Wide eyes.

It was so fucking difficult to ignore what they heard. Gunshots. Screams. All sorts of other sounds. It could almost be assumed there were dogs. Growling, howling: the sounds didn’t sound like human beings, they couldn’t be human beings.

Sickening thoughts that were impossible to block out.

Daithi stumbled into the shadows with his long thin gun as all the girls were hauling bags and guns up onto the roof with them. Scotty was next, scrambling up with Chrissy and Kelly’s hands on his arms. Then Daithi. Ryan and Brock heaved Brian up, the Irish boy able to lift himself as soon as he got his hands on the tiles.

He laid on the edge, locking hands with Ryan as he lifted himself onto the window ledge. Then Brock. And they were all there, panting, shaking and looking around at each other. “Where’s Evan?” Daithi asked, looking over the edge of the roof to see if the Asian boy was hiding still. There was no moon that night: he could hardly see anything.

Brian shook his head, patting the thin boy on shoulder. “If we can get ‘ere, he can too, okay? We have to get ready: I don’t know how much time we have.”

They arranged themselves in a messy, slanted circle, laying out what they had been able to get their hands on. Seven guns. Five rifles, a shotgun and two pistols. They had gathered all the ammunition they could. “Who wants to shoot?” Hands rose, and Ryan picked out the determined ones from the shaken.

He pushed guns into unsteady hands and Brock and Simone fell back. They weren’t too interested in firing their guns: their hands were shaking too much.

“Hey!” A hissed whisper. Evan stood by the wall, a young girl hugging him tightly around the waist and a bag over his shoulder. “Are you guys up there?” Ryan leant down, holding out his arm and getting a hold on the young girl when Evan lifted her. He passed up his bag to Brian, snapping a brash: “Don’t touch anything,” before letting Ryan pull him up onto the roof too. He had his own gun in his hand and looped the bag back over his shoulder.

Simone appeared behind him, squeezing him tightly in a hug, a “Thank God you made it too,” before taking his sister’s hand. Evan pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Liv, stay with Simone until we’re safe, okay?” Shaky nod and tears streaming down her cheeks. She wiped her face as she shuffled away, reassurance rolling of Simone’s tongue.

Evan watched her go.

Marcel loaded his gun, the others doing the same. “Is tha’ everyone?” Brian counted them out before nodding sharply. Every movement was stiff. “Okay, we have limited ammo an’ eight of us versus the whole town plus a couple hundred zombies. I don’ know if anyone will’ve survived, I dunno what’ll happen but we jus’ have ta do what we can.”

Ryan loaded his rifle, trying to ignore the fact that his fingers shook so violently.

“We have to… kill them…” Chrissy whispered, running her fingers through her hair. The gun sat in her lap, untouched, unloaded. “Our- our parents, our teachers?” She bit her lip. “What if there’s… something else we can do?”

Scotty hung his head, Brian bared his teeth. “Can ye hear ‘em?” he murmured, hating every word that left his mouth. Everyone fell silent. Screams over screams tore through the air, each one louder than the last. The sounds of gunshots were lessening, drowned out by screeches and howls. They were getting closer. “They’re already dyin’. Right now, those t’ings are killin’ ‘em and turning ‘em into animals. We don’t have a choice: if we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us.”

A suffocating silence. Chrissy’s exhale was shaking.

Closer, closer, closer.

“Everybody know how to shoot a gun?” Kelly asked, cocking her shotgun and feeling fear well in her chest at the uncertain nods.

The first one they saw was a female, short and so bloodied and wounded they couldn’t make out her face. She curled over, looking so completely inhumane that the most of them just stared in horror, and then let out a scream. Unrestrained, animalistic: there was nothing natural about that sound. She was trembling violently, stumbling forward. Her leg jerked out from underneath her.

Brian rested a hand on Chrissy’s shoulder, the girl gaping in terror. Her chest heaved, gasping in short shallow breaths. They met eyes for a moment, seeking comfort from each other. Brian offered a strained smile.

Then Marcel shot. The bullet hit the girl- the creature, in the side of the head and sent her to the ground. After a few unsteady twitches, she bled out inside her brain and her body died with it. But the gunshot that ripped through the night air did not go unnoticed.

Screeches and howls sounded in reply, angry, eager, starving, and the creatures staggered and stumbled after each other down the street until they stood where her body laid. Within seconds, her body couldn’t even be seen anymore.

Big white eyes locked onto the group on the rooftop. One pair. Two pairs. There were too many fucking white eyes, and growls crawled towards them, followed by their owners.

“Fock,” Daithi muttered and all eight guns went off. Shot after shot.

“Aim for the heads!” Ryan roared, pushing his voice to be heard between the bullets. He ducked his head to peer through the scope of his rifle. Everyone remained completely focused on their shooting, wonky and unexperienced.

They weren’t making much progress: hardly any at all. For every zombie that fell, five more rounded the corner. And the bodies swarmed with no reluctance, scrambling against the walls and climbing over each other.

It was terrifying. For all of them to watch down the barrels of their guns, to watch these animals in human bodies, bleeding and frothing and screeching, hands grabbing what they could, grabbing each other to get ahead. They wanted to eat. They were _starving_. And with fresh meat so close, nothing could stop them except a bullet in the head.

They did not have enough bullets or good enough aim.

“There’s too many!” Kelly’s shout morphed into a wail, too bloody hands getting a grip on the gutter outlining the roof. The creature pulled itself up, face gleaming red. Her shotgun to the face blew him straight back, leaving a gaping hole between his eyes. He disappeared under the crowds in less than a second and Kelly scrambled back.

In a brash decision, Evan threw his gun down beside him and hauled a hunk of metal and wires out of his bag. “Block your ears!” he shouted, launching the package into the centre of the mass. Confused looks: none of them were fast enough to drop their guns in time or ask him why.

The package, like everything else, disappeared from sight.

Three. Two. One.

The explosion stunned all eight of them. Ears rung, half-deaf. They gaped at the Canadian boy as he threw another one. Another explosion. Each one cleared at least ten or twenty zombies surrounding it.

It was _exactly_ what they had needed, and they all jolted back into the present, reloading and shooting down the stragglers that got through. They didn’t know whether to be more relieved or concerned.

“Evan, what in the ever-loving fuck!” Scotty loaded another magazine into his gun, knocking down as many of them as he could as they swarmed in the fill the holes left by their exploded neighbours.

“Where t’e fock did you get _bombs_!?” Brian yelled, reloading his rifle and sending Evan a look of horror.

Evan bit his tongue, throwing one explosive close and the next out the back where more and more zombies kept arriving at the front of the school. Explosions of blood and body parts. Chrissy found herself deaf in one ear as she continued to shoot into the masses.

The situation having once looked hopeless was quickly turning over, bodies falling just as fast as they came.

They all thanked the universe that night had fallen at least. Seeing faces in the dark wasn’t so easy and it made things far more simple, far more unreal. These were just creatures. Not neighbours, teachers, doctors and parents: just creatures.

It took about two hours, sitting up on the roof with guns in their hands. No more ammunition. No more bombs. At 12:03, no body moved on the ground below them.

“It’s over,” Scotty fell back on the roof, hands over his face. “We… we did it, it’s over.”

Kelly placed her shotgun down, noticing just how violently her hands were shaking as they had nothing to grasp. She looked to the boy beside her. “Evan,” she panted, said boy staring vaguely down into the mass of gore and bodies. He snapped his attention back up to her. “Where and _how_!?”

It took a moment for him to realise what she was asking about before he grinned, pride and amusement rearing its head to hide the fear and disbelief painting his eyes. “I made ‘em myself,” he claimed, childish tone despite the situation. His exhaustion couldn’t be completely hidden.

“Thank you for being concerningly ready for a zombie invasion,” Marcel murmured, looking back over his shoulder to where their two missing group members were walking slowly back along the rooftop.

It was just them.

Evan stumbled to his feet. “Where’s my sister?” No more exhaustion, his heart started up fast and hard. “Where’s Liv?”

When Simone lifted her head, close enough to see beneath the stars, they all felt dread swell under their tongues at the rush of tears that were slipping down her cheeks. Regret. Loss. Guilt. Her brown eyes shimmered and Evan didn’t even need to hear it.

He already knew.

_Liv sat between Simone’s legs, Brock on their right side. They all perched themselves on the top of the roof. “What’s going on?” Liv whispered, voice shaking with tears and confused fear._

_Brock’s lips were pressed tightly together, grim. They all flinched as the first gun sounded. Screeches echoed through the air. Howls, screams, wails: louder, closer. They knew they were near. They didn’t know what was going to happen._

_“We don’t know just yet,” Brock said, voice quiet._

_Olivia shuddered. “I’m scared. Where’s Mommy? Where’s Evan?” she asked, wriggling in her spot as she tried to peer down the roof where small shadows indicated the rest of the teens. Shrieks echoed louder. “What’s screaming, who’s screaming!?”_

_Simone’s arms curled around her in reassurance. “It’s- it’s no one, Liv. Don’t listen to it-“_

_“Mom!? Mom! Dad!” Simone wasn’t holding onto her tight enough._

_The seven-year-old stumbled up to her feet, wobbling on the tiles. She jumped away from Simone’s reach, brown eyes widening with horror. “Liv, they aren’t there- c- come back here, it’s not safe!”_

_There was no persuading her. She didn’t hear a word. “Mom!” the girl shrieked, shuffling quickly to the edge of the roof. “Mom, where are you!? Mom, help!”_

_Simone was on her feet too late. The girl stumbled, gutter breaking under her feet and dropping her to the ground. Her shriek was loud but unheard by the gunners up ahead. It was heard by someone though, by something. A stray being that had ears too sharp._

_“Liv!” Brock shouted, Simone scrambling to the edge of the roof. But they didn’t have the time and they couldn’t risk it. The young zombie jumped from the bushes, growling and releasing a shriek as it yanked Liv back to the ground._

_The little girl didn’t even get to scream again as teeth tore out her throat and left her bleeding out on the grass. Simone threw herself back, laying on the roof and holding a hand over her mouth. Wailing, growling. Tears already begun to slip down her cheeks._

_The two of them waited. Silent. Horrified._

_More gunfire. A loud explosion echoed towards them and they heard a little whine, the sound of Liv getting to her feet. Clicking teeth. Two shrieks. Both creatures took off towards the front of the school._

_Simone turned with tears leaving tracks of salty water. She opened her mouth, lips quivering. But no words. Nothing to say._

_Brock pulled her back down and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed._

“I’m so sorry,” Simone choked, stumbling down the roof to Evan. She kneeled in front of him and took his hands, holding them close to her face as she sobbed. Shining tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m so- so sorry, I… We couldn’t stop her and- and we couldn’t get down in time before it gra- grabbed her. I wasn’t- I should’ve-”

She ran out of words. Broken sobs took up the space in her mouth. Evan’s head hung.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He reached forward to Simone’s hip and pulled her close, pulled her into his arms. He buried his face in her hair and she pressed hers to his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, voice whining at the effort. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, more tears pushed out between his eyelids. “I’m so sorry.” She shook. He held her tighter.

“It’s not your fault.” The barest whisper. It was all they got. When Simone pulled away, she instantly turned to Marcel, hiding her face in his chest. He held her. Kelly and Chrissy shared a look. Shattered. 

Faces were painted with tears, hearts shattered with loss and pain. No words. Just broken, whining sobs. 

The first one they lost. The first one they could have saved but didn’t. A little six-year-old girl named Olivia, the younger sister of Evan.

-

After what felt like another hour, Ryan spoke up over the soft crying. It was best to travel along the roof and climb down onto the grass away from the massacre at the front of the school. They couldn’t let their guard down. They couldn’t be sure of safety at all.

Thankfully, they encountered nothing else as they walked.

Simone and Marcel stayed close, Brock leading them all back to Scotty’s house. It was safest in the basement, and by the time they had all stumbled down the stairs, exhaustion and sorrow had consumed them all.

They scattered themselves around the room: couches, carpet, beanbags and chairs. One by one they passed out. No one spoke a word. The few who didn’t sleep sat together in the morning silence. All they could possibly do was be there for each other: stay close, share comfort.

It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing.

Evan didn’t sleep but sat alone. He kept in his corner, head in his hands. He sobbed quietly, shaking with every jolting cry.

He had lost his baby sister. He had lost his parents too: but he could have saved her, he should have saved her. He should have kept her close.

When the sun rose, he was the only one who hadn’t drifted off to sleep at all. Ryan woke first, glancing at him sympathetically but remaining where he was in silence. He knew there was no point in engaging with the boy. There was nothing anyone could say at this point that would make anything better.

He needed time to himself in order to heal.

They all did.

Brian woke next, sitting beside Ryan and mumbling together about what they should do for the day. Evan didn’t hear a word. By eight in the morning, everyone had awoken, taking a few moments each to remember the previous night’s events.

The shooting. The screeching. The blood, explosions, death.

Grim faces. Tight frowns.

“We need to do something with the bodies.” They all sat in somewhat of a group, glancing around at each other with exhausted, pained eyes. “We can’t just leave them there.”

“What can we even do: there’s hundreds of them. It’s not easy to just vanish them off the planet,” Scotty murmured. His hair was wild. Bags hung beneath his eyes.

Brock’s head dipped, a grimace pulling at his lips. “We’ll have to burn them.” Nothing about that sounded fun.

Chrissy hung her head. “There’s so many… It’ll take hours,” she whispered. Simone rubbed her shoulders, sitting behind her on the couch. She ran her fingers over the braids she’d done up the day prior: they’d stayed in, although messy.

“We don’t ‘ave a choice.” Brian sighed.

Ryan leant back against the couch, glancing around the room. “We’ll burn them on the other side of town. Most of our houses are on these blocks, we won’t need to go over there at least not any time soon,” he explained, plotting out his ideas in their heads along with his own. “My uncle has a flatbed trailer so that’ll make things easier. And we can use the bulldozer over out the back of the petrol station. Moving bodies manually by hand won’t be enough but we’re going to need some of us doing just that. We’ll make it work.”

No one looked eager. How could they?

Kelly grit her teeth, bowing her head. “I’ll do what I have to do,” she muttered. It wasn’t like any of them would willingly touch the bodies of their friends and families, but this wasn’t about being willing. Someone had to do the dirty work. Kelly wasn’t going to sit back and hide.

Chrissy nodded, raising a hand to volunteer herself also. Evan, Brian, Ryan and Marcel also offered themselves and that, they decided, was enough for the moment.

“Put on any water-proof jackets or pants. I have some plastic gloves at my place and I know Simone has some facemasks. We just have to make as little direct contact as possible.” Grim nodding. Ryan cleared his throat, carding his fingers through his hair. “Brock, you can drive the trailer, Simone and Scott, you guys can work the bulldozer and Daithi you can be driving an old pick-up truck that we can pile bodies on to.”

“Fock’s sake,” Brian murmured, rubbing his face with his hands. After another moment, he stood, already looking exhausted despite how early in the day it was. He glanced around gloomily. “Well, we might as well get started.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish, and it’ll all be- all be gone…”

Looks of anxiety, of pain. Reluctant teenagers standing to follow.

There was nothing to look forward to that day. Every heart in that room was heavy. Every exhale tasted like dread.


	5. Black Smoke

**Kensington, Kansas**  
4 th of March  
8:23am

The smell of death was bad enough. The smell of blood, of bodies, of flesh and meat going cold and stale. The stench clung to them like water, stained their skin, their clothes, their throats. Those who were moving the bodies had it worst.

They were covered as much as possible. Gloves, face masks, rain-jackets and hoods. Their protection became painted with blood. They all smelt like death.

It took them hours. Hours on hours of heaving bodies up and throwing them onto the trailer, piling them into the pick-up truck and pushing them into the scoop of the bulldozer. Of slipping on body parts, on pieces of meat, puddles of blood. Of pretending they didn’t notice the body they were dragging wore the face of a neighbour, a parent’s friend.

Hours.

They pushed through.

With the first load of bodies, Scott had gotten the fire started. They’d dragged a number of wooden tables, chairs and other bits of furniture to set ablaze. It made it easier then to dump the bodies in the flames but that in itself was exhausting. Rolling bodies off the edge of the trailer, shoving them out of the pick-up truck. The heat was unbearable: staining skin red with anger, burning and itching. They drove away soaked in sweat and gasping for cool air.

But if they thought the smell of the bodies was bad, they weren’t ready for the smoke. Black, thick and sickly: it was suffocating, it was consuming. The drivers couldn’t wait to get away but it was worse each time they returned.

Trip after trip. Each dump of bodies. Trailer. Bulldozer. Truck.

It built a beacon into the open sky above the town. One, huge cloud of smoke, cloud of the dead.

All ten of them worked hard and silently. There was no escape from the smell. There was no escape from the sickly feeling in their stomachs.

When the last of the bodies were driven away, the six of them, splattered in blood and gore, collapsed by the side of the school. All they could see of each other were eyes. Sad, heavy eyes that had seen too much, felt too much, fought too much.

Death.

It was awful.

“I never want to see another dead body in my life,” Brian murmured, squeezing his eyes shut because he couldn’t rub them with his blood-stained gloves. He wanted to forget.

Kelly nodded. “I never wanna smell one again.”

Grim. Grim and bare. There was nothing pleasant about moving the bodies of the people they’d grown up with.

Ryan’s head rocked back, eyes slipping to the sky. Clouded with black smoke. It moved fast and deadly, hovering low over the town in malice. Starving: it consumed fresh air and smothered white clouds. There was only enough room for it and it alone. They didn’t mention it.

And finally, when their bloodied and burnt vehicles rolled around the corner, Simone, Scotty, Brock and Daithi climbed out. They pulled masks off their faces to reveal tight lips and grimaces and as soon as they were close enough, the other six scrunched up their noses. The smell of ashy death clung to them like disease.

“We all need to shower. Now. My dad has-… had… a high-pressure hose: I’ll get rid of as much of the blood as I can,” Kelly murmured, pulling off her gloves and shrugging off the jacket. They all followed suit, dumping the ruined clothing in the back of the pick-up truck. “Someone wanna drive these back to the fire and burn ‘em?” she asked and Evan nodded, wordlessly pulling himself into the driver’s seat. They turned and stumbled back towards Scotty’s house and the other houses surrounding it, in search for showers and soap. Wash away the blood. Wash away the stench. It wasn’t enough, but it’d do.

Evan drove in silence, the inside and outside of the car stained with the scent. He held a clean cloth to his mouth and nose when he got out, the heat of the blaze pushing him back a few steps. His eyes watered.

A flash of white.

_Liv’s face._

_He’d found her in the massacre. He’d found her lying limply beneath other bodies. Her eyes, wide and white. Her mouth open, lips painted red, nightgown stained with the colour. She was missing an arm and by her wounds, he could tell: he knew it was an explosion that had killed her._

_His explosion._

The pile of bodies was huge. Not so much tall as it was wide, but the flames caught on each body and burnt through the flesh and meat as though starving. He could see remnants of those bodies, remnants of faces hollowing out, remnants of his family.

They were in there, he thought, baring his teeth. They were in there. His mother, his father, his sister… They were in there, they were burning, they were gone.

_He hadn’t been able to touch her, frozen still. He hadn’t realised he was crying until his tears dropped to her body, mixing in with the dried blood on her cheeks. Kelly had found him, ushering him back as Brian picked up the small child’s body._

_The small child they had all known, they had all adored. Babysat. Played with. Given piggy-back rides._

He turned away, fetching the raincoats and gloves and throwing them into the flames. He ignored how the heat stung his skin red, how the smoke stained the walls of his throat, how his ribs fractured into tiny unfixable pieces at the thought of his family lost to a disease, his family burning down into piles of ash.

He ignored the tears rolling down his cheeks.

The blood dripped from his fingers, wiped off on his pants. He no longer cared.

Holding his breath, he threw the cloth into the flames also before getting back into the car and driving back to the other side of town.

-

Each one of them savoured the warm water. Walled off by glass, standing in the heat, in the steam: the smell, the feeling, the stains of smoke and blood and death washed down the drain between their feet. Soapy hands, soapy cloths scrubbed the skin raw. Over and over again: no matter how many times, no matter how much soap, the smell remained. The feeling, the stench, the taste. Tears streamed down faces. Could they ever really be clean again, could they ever escape that smell.

When they re-emerged, reluctant and cautious, they collected out the front of Scott’s house, watching Kelly as she hosed down the road and the school driveway, washing streams of red and pieces of meat down the drains on the sides of the road.

They couldn’t even see the sun-set. Black smoke blocked out the sky. No colour. No more than a small shine on the horizon. Black, empty world.

Red slowly disappeared. Some of it wouldn’t be removed. Some of it refused.

When she’d done all she could, she wrapped up the hose and left it by the side of the school. They grouped back up in Scotty’s house, trooping down to the basement. It seemed the best place to collect.

They settled down around the room, many of them splayed across couches. Evan sat at the desk, tinkering with different materials. Brian glanced at him, suspicious, but didn’t speak. Simone and Chrissy sat together, hands to themselves and pretending Kelly didn’t purposefully shove Chrissy closer to the girl beside her. Marcel sat on the floor, head against Simone’s knees. She played thoughtlessly with his hair.

Daithi huffed a sigh, fiddling with the game controller but not turning any games on.

“What now?” Marcel asked, head falling back against Simone’s gentle hands. “We’ve put an end to the zombies, we’ve burnt all the bodies: now it’s just us in this town. What are we going to do?”

There was no response. Not from Brian, not from Ryan, not from any of them. They didn’t know. They couldn’t know.

Was there anywhere for them to go? Anyone for them to contact? How long before the whole country was taken over, was turned? How long before they were the only ones left?

“What if another train comes?” Simone asked, words falling to the floor. She didn’t look up from the carpet, fingers still against Marcel’s scalp. The thought was not pleasing to their ears. “What do we do then, do- do we think there’ll be another one?”

Kelly huffed. “We expect them. We- we make sure that we’re ready for them to come, and that way, we can’t be caught off guard if they do.”

A small nod from Ryan. “Right now, we just have to… make sure we can handle the next week. The next train is due in three days: we get ready for it to come and deal with it if it does. And after that, we rebuild what we can between us.”

“There’s ten of us,” Scotty murmured.

“We do what we can. We stay alive,” Ryan pushed.

Nodding heads. Daithi stood. “I’m goin’ to the doctor’s,” he stated. At the surprised and confused looks he shrugged. “We’re goin’ to need ta take care of ourselves. I’ll clean the place out an’ ye can stay there if ye get hurt. I know enough to get started an’ I’ll teach m’self more. Then I can patch ye up when you do somethin’ dumb.”

He was halfway up the stairs when Brock stood. “I’ll come too,” he blurted out, rushing to the stairs also. “It- It’ll be better if there’s two of us.”

Daithi watched him for a moment, brows raised. “A’ight,” he murmured, and continued up the stairs with the older boy on his tail.

And like that, there were just eight left in the room, various looks of helplessness, of thought, of confusion. “We should… get ourselves set up,” Ryan declared, standing. “I don’t know how long the power will last: we should get as much food as we can, and as many supplies: we stock up our houses and get ready for the next… for the next week, for the next month; we don’t know how long yet.”

“We should all stay in houses along this street,” Kelly said. Her eyes drew pictures on the ceiling as she spoke. “It’ll be smart to stay in twos or threes for safety. Is there anyone who really wants to stay in their own house?”

Hesitant eyes. The pictures on the walls, the smell of family members on bed sheets, the memories of parents in the kitchen, siblings at the dinner table, voices of the people they had loved; people they had lost. Could they really be brave enough to wake up to that every day?

“We’ll stay on this street. That way if anything goes wrong, it won’t take long to find someone else, okay?” Dark eyes wandered different faces, waiting for someone to refuse or disagree. Thankfully, they all seemed to be on the same page and Marcel nodded in affirmation. “Good. Now we should go to the shops and stock up our houses. Fill up trolleys with food and such, and organise where and who you wanna stay with.”

Slow nods. When they stepped outside, they split off into small groups and murmured amongst themselves, some pairs heading for the supermarket while others wandered down the road.

Evan followed Ryan and Brian, the three of them walking down the street beneath the night sky in search for a house that looked to be comfortable and functional. He hardly noticed their choice until Brian was holding the door open for him. A glance up at those blue eyes. Blue eyes of remorse and sympathy.

He kept his eyes on the floorboards.

In the back of his mind he acknowledged the two speaking with one another, walking through the house to map out where everything was. Evan didn’t hear them. He didn’t look up. He didn’t want to see photo-frames, he didn’t want to see whose house this was, whose room he was to sleep in. He didn’t want to know.

Without either of his new housemates noticing, he shuffled upstairs and found himself in a bedroom at the end of the hall. Perfect. A guest room.

No personalisation, no memories, no human soul that had made this room a home. It was all his.

With that pleasant thought in the front of his mind he fell forwards onto the mattress, tucked his head beneath a pillow and allowed his body to melt. He didn’t even realise he was falling asleep before it was too late to stop himself.

-

Kelly and Chrissy walked side by side, both of them pushing a trolley each down the unlit aisles of food. It was eerie to be wandering through the grocery shop alone. Their carts were unnaturally loud.

They didn’t even need to discuss if they wanted to live together: it was an obvious decision. The two girls had grown up alongside each other, since the first day of school to the first day of the apocalypse, their bond was unbreakable and it would only be growing stronger. They knew each other better than anyone did and they stayed attached at the hip, always. They told each other everything.

They were barely unrelated. Sisters.

But they kept their words limited as they walked, picking packets and tins of food off the shelves.

Sharp eyes watched as Chrissy piled a dozen large packs of two-minute noodles into her trolley. “You are not eating that shit for lunch and dinner every day, I swear to God,” she chastised and guilty eyes blinked up at her.

“I’ll eat what I want!” she responded in a stubbornly childish way, stalking forwards with her trolley as Kelly rolled her eyes.

“Just because our- our moms aren’t here to make us proper food doesn’t mean we can just eat shit, okay? We still gotta take care of ourselves.”

A grunt of disapproval left Chrissy’s throat. And that was it. Neither spoke again, the mention of their mothers leaving a bad taste in both girl’s mouths. Reluctantly, Chrissy walked through the doors with a basket of vegetables and fruits in her trolley too, atop the packets of cheap snack food.

Walking the trolley’s down the dark street, Simone intercepted them. Chrissy’s lips lifted in a small smile at the sight of her. “Hey you two. Scott and Marcel are staying in the same house and I don’t want to have to deal with… that every day,” she muttered, words followed by a yawn. Nerves hid behind the chocolate colour in her eyes.

Kelly didn’t miss it. “Come with us then.” Broad smile. “Hope you don’t mind, of course: Chrissy snores.” She walked on past the other two, grin on her lips as Chrissy’s eyes widened.

“I do not, you bitch!” she snapped, her older sister throwing her head back with a laugh as she left the embarrassed girl with Simone. “I don’t,” she promised, pushing the trolley on as Simone giggled and fell into step beside her. “But yeah, we have more than enough space and it’ll be fun to have all three of us in the one house.”

A soft smile directed at the concrete. “Thanks.”

“No stress: I’d rather be zombie food than put up with _those two_ all day and night too.” Simone glanced up, catching Chrissy’s playful wink. A gentle laugh. “Also,” she added, stepping over to nudge Simone as she walked. “I dibs the biggest bed.”

Simone scoffed. “No way!” After a moment of thought, her eyes lit up and a grin spread across her face, dazzling Chrissy in the middle of the street. “Not if I get there first,” she dared, mischief twinkling in her eyes before she took off and ran down the street, hopping the small fence and ducking into the house Kelly had just disappeared into.

Chrissy shook her head with a smile, not even trying to chase her down.

Who was she kidding? If giving Simone the bigger bed made her smile like that, Chrissy would give her anything she wanted.

 

 

 

 **Indiana**  
4 th of March  
8:39pm

Driving. Driving, driving, driving, driving.

Pull over on the side of the road. Eat an apple. A packet of chips. Dry conversation and heavy eyes. Interrupted sleep: shallow. Waking up from a bump in the road, jerking on the breaks, nightmares that never seemed to leave them alone.

Each day dragged on slower and slower. Each day hope grew less and less.

Hours of silence. Hours of pretending to sleep, of turning the car off on the side of the road and laying back in the car seats. Eyes wide. Chests aching. Hours and hours and fucking hours.

Every town they came across was swarmed with the diseased. Some strayed out to the long rural roads, screeching at the sight of the car but not fast enough to get close: they drove quick and steady.

It was so hard not to give up.

The sun had set, and the roads were dark. Tyler didn’t want to have headlights on. When they pulled aside, Craig sat up and rubbed his eyes. Long drinks of water. Tasteless food, growling stomachs.

“How’re you feeling?” Tyler murmured. His blue eyes lacked their usual shine. Bags held beneath them, look of desperation, of guilt, of loss. A hand reached, slow as he scooped up Craig’s fingers into his own. He squeezed gently.

Craig didn’t have the energy for even a small smile and he dropped his eyes to the console between them. “’m okay,” he murmured. Exhausted. “Jus’ tired.”

The calloused thumb brushed against the back of his hand. What could he say? _“We’ll get there soon.”_ Get where? When was soon? How long would they be driving for? Days? Weeks? Months?

Would they ever find a town with coloured eyes and beating hearts?

“We’re going to be okay,” Tyler murmured, tugging on that hand to emphasise his point. Craig glanced up at him through his eyelashes. “I promise, we’ll find somewhere to- to stay. We can’t be the only ones.”

Craig swayed forwards, sleepiness weighing him down, but the small movement got his message across. Tyler closed the distance between them and pressed a careful kiss to his lips.

“Okay,” Craig mumbled against his mouth, feeling warmth tingle under Tyler’s touch as his hand lifted to cup his cheek. “Okay.” His eyes rolled back in content, relieved to finally rest shut.

Tyler eased back, reluctant, and examined his boyfriend’s face in the dark. “C’mon,” he whispered. “Try and get some sleep, baby.”

He leaned over and adjusted Craig’s chair for him, an angle that made sleeping in a car chair as comfortable as it could be. The darkness enveloped the two of them, laying on their sides, hating the space between them. But there wasn’t enough room in the back of the car to sleep there.

They had to deal with stiff necks and sore backs.

Tyler’s fingers linked with Craig’s, a promise to be there all night, a promise to be there all day, the next day, and the next, and all those that followed. “I love you,” Tyler murmured, the darkness swallowing his words and breathing them back into Craig’s ear. Craig slurred something in response that sounded close enough to: “Love you too”.

He fell asleep with a small smile on his lips.

Craig slept dreamlessly and deeply. He didn’t wake until sunrise.

 

 

 

 **Kensington, Kansas**  
4 th of March  
11:54pm

They hadn’t really discussed it, but perhaps it was the mutual fear that pushed them to accept it. Marcel and Scotty lay in the wide bed, their backs facing each other and an obvious space between them.

No one wanted to sleep alone. No one wanted to take a risk, even one as small as spending the night in a room by themselves.

So, they’d dressed in any comfortable loose clothing they’d found and climbed into a bed that didn’t belong to them. But they didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. Having laid beneath those blankets for at least an hour, Scott was sick of staring into the darkness and straining his ears for sounds of screaming and gunshots.

He rolled onto his back, noticing the body beside him tense up in shock. “I’m not falling asleep after today. I jus’ can’t.” Though stubborn, though tired, though grumpy; his voice stayed low and quiet. Just loud enough for Marcel to hear. But no one else, nothing else.

After a moment of quiet hesitation, Marcel let himself roll onto his back too. He and Simone had agreed that she’d be better off staying with Kelly and Chrissy than Marcel. The girls sticking together was smart and Simone wasn’t too concerned. Her eyes were heavy and all she really had wanted was a comfortable bed to fall into.

For that reason, Marcel had dragged Scotty inside a house and after half an hour of turning photographs around or placing them face down without looking too closely, they had both collapsed on the mattress with intentions to fall right asleep as well.

It wasn’t so simple.  

“Yeah, me neither.”

The two boys stared up at the ceiling, Scott’s hands rested on his tummy and Marcel’s tucked underneath his head. “I can’t stop hearing their… screams,” Scott murmured, his words barely making it past his lips.

Marcel heard. A soft hum of understanding, of agreement. He didn’t contribute, and Scotty saw that as an invitation to speak his mind.

“I can’t stop thinking about it: about what we’re going to do now. What happens if we lose power? What happens if another train comes with zombies? What happens if we run out of food and starve, or get sick and can’t save ourselves, or spend years out here until we finally die off like we were supposed to yesterday.” His voice stayed flat. The words had been running through his head all day and finally releasing them was no more satisfying than it was keeping them in his head.

Nothing could bring him satisfaction: not with the fear that trickled into his blood.  

Marcel let out a soft sigh. “I don’t know, Scott.” Shifting around on the mattress, he laid on his side and blinked at his friend’s silhouette. “None of us do. And that’s shit but honestly dude, we just have to prepare for the worst and see what happens.”

Soft, reassuring. There was no answer to Scott’s questions, but he found it easier to close his eyes. Marcel’s voice was calming. His words were true.

“We’re all here. That’s what’s important. You’re not alone; no one is.” Darkness danced around them. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the light from the stars and the moon. “We just have to stay strong and we’ll get through this. We’ll survive. Okay?”

Scott rolled onto his side also, not able to make out any more than a pale reflection of Marcel’s dark eyes. He rolled the words around in his head, before allowing his eyes to rest shut. “Okay. We’ll survive,” he repeated.

Marcel smiled, gentle and unseen. “Get some sleep, Scott.” Feather-light fingertips tucked a few strands of hair behind Scott’s ear before the silence enveloped the two of them, slumber not far behind.

 

 

 

 **Pennsylvania**  
5 th of March  
10:23am

They had to savour their food.  Three bags would have never been enough and after driving for five days they knew they would need to get more soon.

Each day they scarcely ate two meals. Jon spent most of the time sleeping it away. Luke noticed he looked frail. Pale skin. Mostly silent. He looked ill but Luke didn’t mention it: he just passed Jon water and food when he woke from a shallow sleep, and kept his attention on the long empty roads.  

They were driving through Pennsylvania, fleeing another town ridden with undead. No time to get out of the car and get more food. They were almost down to only one bag. They were running out of time.

Luke drove in silence, stomach aching and cramping in hunger. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d eaten. Jon was his priority.

Just as those thoughts slipped through Luke’s mind, his brother jerked upright in his seat, no longer asleep. His eyes were wide in alarm, mouth agape. Luke slammed his foot on the brakes and turned.

“What’s wrong?” Hard, fast. Jon’s eyes flicked to him, wide and buggy as his hand grasped at his chest. Luke reached for him but the boy lurched forwards, coughing hard and painfully. One hand on his chest, one hand over his mouth: Luke reached over and thumped his fist against his brother’s back, worry in his eyes.

Jon looked so thin and sick. He coughed and coughed and coughed until finally, he managed to dislodge the mass of yellow and red phlegm from his throat. Both boys grimaced.

Coughing up blood. That was never a good sign.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked, drawing Jon’s attention to him. The boy wound down the window and shook his hand out of the car. He wiped it along the outside of the door.

Blue eyes darted everywhere. His other hand remained flat against his chest. “I… I think s-so,” he wheezed, throat scratched up from the exertion. “My chest is hurting. It hurts a lot when I coughed an- and-“

A hand rested on his shoulder, calm brown eyes examining him. “Just breathe, Jon. You’re okay,” he promised. “Have a drink of water, and something to eat. And tell me if the pain gets worse.”

He hid the worry in his mind, locking it away where his brother didn’t notice. He couldn’t scare him. But the image of bloody mucus was far from comforting. The car eased forward, Luke boosting the speed up higher than usual. They needed to find somewhere with food and water. They needed to survive.


	6. Sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait guys. i finished exams and after next week im totally on summer break so hopefully, ill be a lil more consistent xx  
> hope you enjoy a couple of nicer scenes. sorry for the lack of plot in this one

**Kensington, Kansas**  
**5 th of March**  
**7:42am**

Scotty was, to say the least, confused and surprised when he slowly woke up with arms around his middle, a chest pressed to his back and a face tucked into the nape of his neck. His first thoughts weren’t as shocked or uncomfortable as he might’ve assumed they would’ve been. With Marcel’s warmth curled around him and his legs linked with Scotty’s, a gentle blanket of comfort and safety enveloped him, and the thought of moving away wasn’t even on his mind.

Marcel was asleep. He was comfortable, Scott was comfortable: there was no reason to wake the peaceful boy. Quiet fear of Marcel’s reaction hovered in the back of his mind and he assured himself there was no need to worry.

 _I’ll get up soon_ , Scotty told himself. _I’ll get up and he won’t need to know we slept like this._ That way there would be no awkward situations, no uncomfortable air between them. But “soon” didn’t exactly have a time as he thoughtlessly fiddled with Marcel’s fingers. He let his eyes rest shut again as he focused on the steady, warm exhales that washed over the back of his neck. Calm. Warm. Safe.

He didn’t mean to fall back to sleep.

 

-

 

Kelly woke up in a room alone. It was disorientating to open her eyes to an unfamiliar home laying atop a mattress not as soft as the one she’d been sleeping on for years. When her sleepy eyes finally fell to the picture frame on the bedside table, a photo of two children and a mother, love and joy in their grins, the floodgate opened and memories hit her with the force of a tsunami.

Waking to the screams. The deafening sounds of gunshots from all around her, from her own hands. The explosions. The bodies. The smell. The smoke.

A soft knock of the frame’s face meeting the surface of the table. This was not her home. This was not her bed. The food she would eat was not her food, the photos in the frames were not her family. Illness swirled in her stomach.

She didn’t want to see those smiles. She didn’t want to be reminded. A grimace pulled at her lips and she let her warm, bare feet come to rest on the floorboards before her mind could wander any deeper into her memories. It was a conscious effort to ignore the pictures and photo-frames hung up on cream-painted walls.

Coming to Chrissy’s bedroom first, she peaked into the room. An empty bed. Blankets cast aside and room cold. Perhaps she was already awake?

Easing Simone’s door open revealed this wasn’t so true, finding Simone laying in the bed and Chrissy splayed out on the couch beneath the window, a thin blanket curled tightly around her. Kelly smiled gently.

The door clicked shut.

 

-

 

Evan had been awake for hours. Long, torturous hours. He had woken before the sun and watched as it had painted pretty colours on his curtains. There was no effort to get up, or to roll over, or to do much more than lay flat on his back and stare at the ceiling.

He was stiff and sore. It didn’t matter.

He refused to close his eyes.

Sleep didn’t bring relief. Not after he had lost his baby sister. Not after he had found her again, laying in the destruction, covered in blood, throat torn open. Wide, white eyes. A stump in replace of an arm.

He saw her face. Over and over. Alive and grinning and laughing, then open and dead, crawling with maggots. Over and over and over. Sleep. See her face. Watch her die. Hear her screams. Wake up. Cry. Fall back to sleep and see it all over again.

No peace. His eyes burned and his throat stung. When he finally pulled himself out of bed, Brian met him on the way out of the shower. “Ryan’s got us breakfast downstairs when ye’re hungry,” he murmured, a small smile. Sympathetic eyes. Evan nodded, slipped past him and filled the bathroom with steam.

He moved on autopilot: washing with soap that smelt different to his, under water with lower pressure than he was used to, surrounded by tiles a darker colour than his own had been.

He didn’t realise he was crying until he stepped out from beneath the water.

His toast went cold. His door didn’t open again all morning.

 

-

 

The sun seeped into the room slowly, revealing the piles on piles of textbooks atop the table. Daithi sat in a chair, a book open in his lap and a gun against the wall. The lamp behind him was still on, though no longer needed as the sunlight lit up the page of numerous different diagrams of the human brain. But the pages remained unturned and unread, and the lamp remained on, as Daithi had fallen asleep moments prior to the sun rising above the horizon.

Human biology textbooks. Medical textbooks. Textbooks about illnesses, about malfunctions of the human body. And the book in Daithi’s lap: explanations of sicknesses that can occur inside one’s head, images of sick brains, of brains with tumours. Nothing came anywhere close to the infection that plagued the country.

It was no common cancer, that was for sure.

He’d spent the entire night reading in silence, never once disturbing the boy curled up in the armchair on the other side of the table. At midnight, he had finished cleaning up the building. Putting documents about dead neighbours away, cleaning out medical rooms and examining the limited number of machines they had for their use. Once everything was tidy, he’d left Brock to sleep and snuck through town to the library where he’d dug out as many human biology, medicine and health textbooks as he could, carting them all back to the doctor’s where he sat down to learn.

Brock slept like a baby. After helping Daithi clean up, sleep overcame him and he collapsed in a chair to rest. Though Daithi said he would wake him if he needed any help, Brock woke naturally to the sunlight filling the room and Daithi’s soft breaths. The catastrophe of books on the table was a surprise and he took a few moments to look over the titles and what they may have contained. Daithi was a smart boy, that was for sure. But after reading all night, he needed a real rest. Brock pulled the curtains, covered the boy in a thin blanket he’d found and closed the open book, after marking the page of sick brains with a folded corner. He turned out the light before leaving the room and the building.

The morning sun was warm, but a breeze washed over him with a touch of refreshment. Spring. It followed his every step, bloomed in bright green grass and flowers in the gardens of empty homes. Brian met him halfway down the street, soft smile as he jogged up to him.

“Did ye and Daithi sleep at the doc’s?” he asked, greeting the boy in a half hug, hands clasped between them. When they drew back, he nodded and Brian’s brows rose. He didn’t miss the bags of exhaustion hanging beneath kind eyes. “Did ye get any sleep?”

The two continued down the street together, Brian leading them to the shopping centre. “I got enough. Daithi’s sleeping now.” They grabbed a shopping cart each on the way into the building. It was a lot more ominous with the lights off. No music. No workers. Abandoned. “I don’t think he fell asleep until sunrise, so he probably won’t be awake until evening,” Brock commented.

Brian smiled sadly. “Evan won’t be out either,” he murmured, running fingers through his hair as he began piling food items into his trolley. At Brock’s confused look, he nodded. “Saw ‘im this morning but ‘e went right back to bed an’ didn’t even come down t’ eat breakfast. Don’t t’ink he slept too well.”

A low hum. Remorse. But no words to explain. What could be said? Poor Evan. No one would sleep well after losing a sibling.

They turned into the next aisle, decidedly leaving the topic behind them. “Anyways, we’ll drop off t’is food an’ then I’m gonna come back an’ have a look through the other stores; I want ta try and find some good walkie-talkies we can use. You can come wit’ me if you’d like: doesn’t seem like anyone else is awake jus’ yet.” Brian offered, dumping a large number of tins and such into his cart.

Brock nodded, and for the rest of their shop they walked in silence, picking out what would last the longest and what they could cook with. The medic-in-training also dropped a number of pots and pans into his cart to take to the little kitchen the back room of the doctor’s office. That way they’d be able to cook up simple foods if they were staying there overnight.

Once finished, they walked their carts down the road, temporarily parting to take their groceries inside. Brock chose the house on the other side of Brian, not letting himself focus on the décor or photographs as he filled up the fridge and pantry with the food he’d gathered. Soon enough, he made his way back out of the house where Brian was already waiting. They talked about medical stuff and the doctor’s and what they thought would be good to do in preparation for the coming weeks as they walked.

Spring watched and followed with a smile. Her breath washed over their faces. Her touch kept their bare skin warm.  

 

-

 

 **Indiana**  
**5 th of March**  
**10:23am**

Tyler woke late. When the sun finally reached over the horizon to wash against his eyelids it was midmorning and the dreams of blood and screaming were already fading from his memory.

By the time he managed to blink the sleepiness from his eyes, he realised his fingers were still linked with Craig’s. He looked to his sleeping boyfriend. Relaxed eyes, parted lips, ruffled hair. Beautiful. Tyler smiled, thoughtlessly running the pad of his thumb along the crease of Craig’s wrist.

With his left hand, he turned the radio on quietly, plugging in his phone seeing as he couldn’t connect to any sort of radio station. Then, after starting the engine as quietly as he could, he pulled the car onto the long, endless road again and eased them onwards.

More driving.

But it was easier with Craig’s fingers in his, the heavy sleeper undisturbed when Tyler lifted their hands and placed a soft kiss to his knuckles. With music playing, Craig’s hand in his and the sun basking them in warmth: it was easy to pretend there was nothing wrong at all.

No zombies. No loss. No pain.

Just him, his angel and the long road ahead.

 

-

 

 **Kensington, Kansas**  
**5 th of March**  
**10:34am**

By the time Simone woke, the sun was bright and eager against her curtains. Lethargy hung heavy in her mind, the weight of exhaustion that followed a weak and shallow night of sleep. Vague memories of unkind dreams wafted through her thoughts as she rolled over on the mattress and sighed. When she managed to blink her lazy eyes open, they fell to the limp body laid out on the small couch across the room.

Chrissy’s body was clearly too long for the sofa and Simone would be surprised if she didn’t wake up with a sore neck or back. But still, the girl was an image of comfort. A gentle smile pulled at Simone’s lips as her eyes wandered the face of her friend. Brown hair looked more like a bird’s nest atop her head. Her lips were parted, a line of dried drool crossing her cheek. Her slack expression lit beneath the glow of the window above her head; open, vulnerable, peaceful. ‘Beautiful’ was the one word that crossed Simone’s mind.

It took her a long few minutes of admiring the girl on the couch before she asked herself _why_ she was there to begin with. At that thought, she eased herself upright, ignoring her body’s sore complaints. She, Chrissy and Kelly had all disappeared into their own rooms the previous night and Simone didn’t remember Chrissy coming into hers any time after. Simone was a light sleeper so it was a surprise to think that her clumsy friend had made it into the room without making a sound. But the couch was short and obviously uncomfortable; why didn’t the girl just get into the bed with Simone? There was more than enough room for the both of them.

The sun that peaked over the windowsill above decided then to spill onto Chrissy’s face and soak her eyelids in light. Eventually, it did its job. Chrissy grimaced and scrunched up her eyes, an unhappy moan spilling from her lips. In thoughts of escaping the sun’s harassment, she rolled over and in her state of sleepy annoyance, she seemed to have forgotten that the couch had… very limited width.

The thump of her body falling to the floor, entangled in the sheet, had Simone giggling where she sat up against her pillows. Another groan of discomfort.

“You okay down there?” she asked with an undertone of fond amusement. She listened to the sound of Chrissy shuffling around and detangling herself, before the girl managed to pull herself up onto her knees and fall face first on the mattress.

“’m great.” The grumbled words were muffled against the mattress and had Simone’s smile widening, locking her laughter behind pursed lips.

“Was your room to cold?”

Chrissy lifted her head, eyes blinking in surprise as she processed what Simone was asking. A thoughtless hand ran through her hair before rubbing off the drool on her cheek. “N- nah, I just couldn’t, uh… sleep by myself.” She hid her embarrassment with a careless shrug and dragged the rest of her body up onto the bed which was undoubtedly a billion times more comfortable than the couch she had slept on.

Simone nodded. Of course, she understood. After the dreams that had followed her throughout her own sleep the idea of sleeping alone wasn’t so appealing at all. A sense of comfort reassured her to know she had not been alone that night. “You didn’t need to sleep on the couch then, Silly.” She reached forward and pulled at Chrissy’s hand, leading her further up the bed to rest her head on a pillow. “There’s heaps of room in this bed. You could’ve woken me up or just gotten in. There’s no way you slept well on the couch!” Chrissy rolled onto her side, eyes showing both her surprise and lingering embarrassment. Before she could respond, Simone asked instead: “Why didn’t you go to Kelly?” It was no question that the two were like sisters. It would have made sense for the girl to go and sleep in the room with the one she was most comfortable with.

Chrissy snorted in laughter, pretty eyes rolling as she twisted onto her back. “She kicks _and_ steals the blankets. I would have if there was a couch in there but your room was the only one with one,” she explained, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. Simone stretched her arms over her head, yawning as she listened. “And you looked so peaceful; I didn’t want to wake you.” The comment was thoughtless.

“I did?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking, memory of the restlessness that plagued her dreams.

It seemed Chrissy had no explanation for the claim, managing no more than a shrug as she turned her pink cheeks into the pillow. It had been dark, Chrissy had likely just assumed. With a heavy sigh, Simone dragged herself out from beneath the blankets, stretching up on her toes as the cold brushed across her legs. “I’m gonna shower; there’s another bathroom downstairs if you can’t wait, but I’ll give you a shout when I’m finished,” she explained. Chrissy nodded, face still hidden in her pillow as Simone reached the door. “Also.” She turned back, drawing attention up to her in the form of pretty eyes. “No couch tonight. We’ll share the bed, okay?” Kind eyes, welcome smile.

Chrissy nodded, still without words and cheeks still a shade of pink that Simone thought nothing of. But the acknowledgement was enough confirmation for Simone. She walked from the room with eagerness for a hot shower, humming softly and smiling to the memory of Chrissy’s sleepy face beneath the sunlight.

 

-

 

When Scotty woke again, confusion layered his first thoughts with a sense of disorientation. He was in the same bed, the same bedroom. But there was no chest pressed to his back and no arms around his middle. The space behind him was cold. He didn’t realise he was frowning until he sat up and met his own eyes in the mirror across the room.

Shit. He wasn’t supposed to fall back asleep.

Thoughts wound through his mind, fast enough to be read but not eager to linger as he blinked away his drowsiness from his half-lidded eyes. What if Marcel had been weirded out about waking up cuddling Scott? What if he didn’t want to be near Scott? What if he didn’t want to share the bed, or even worse, share the house with him anymore?

Dread accompanied his footsteps as he dragged himself out of his room and to the kitchen. Marcel stood against the counter, dazed eyes lost in their own thoughts. His fingers were curled around a mug and his hair was ruffled.

When Scott stepped cautiously into the room, those dark eyes snapped to him in surprise and, unexpectedly, a smile pulled at the boy’s lips. “Mornin’, Scott. Made you coffee,” he greeted, nodding to the other mug on the bench beside them. Confused but pleasantly surprised at the lack of disgust in Marcel’s eyes, he walked up to him and picked up the cup. “How’d you sleep?”

Maybe he could blame it on the heat of the coffee to why his cheeks flushed rosy. “Uh, good- good enough,” he forced out. Marcel nodded, still looking wistful as he took another sip. “Did you?”

His response was a little delayed, but honest with the dark fingers that carded through his hair. “Not too well,” he murmured, blinking slowly. Lethargy showed in his every move, exhaustion unrelieved by his unsteady sleep. “Kept waking up.”

Oh. Scotty frowned. “Sleep some more today. You need it,” he assured, mind elsewhere as his thoughts ran in circles. How long had they been cuddling? Did Marcel wake up to them cuddling and not move like Scotty had? Had he purposefully pulled Scotty to him in the night when he’d awoken?

A slow nod. “Yeah, I will later.”

Perhaps Marcel was just going to pretend it never happened. Perhaps that was the easiest way to go about it. Rubbing his eyes, Scott pushed the memory of waking up in Marcel’s arms to the back of his mind. If Marcel wouldn’t mention it, neither would he. “D’you reckon the others are up yet?”

 

-

 

“Brock, do ye still copy?”

“Still copy.” The clear response. Brian grinned, sun warming his shoulders as he walked down the footpath. “I’m at the doc’s now, where are you? Over.”

A glance around. “At our houses,” he informed, adjusting the bag over his shoulder. “Over,” an afterthought.

As he continued walking back, a door opened to his right. Kelly appeared, fingers winding through her hair as she braided it over her shoulder. Her eyes landed on him, confused, and she took her time walking to the gate that bordered her front yard. “Is that a walkie-talkie?” she asked with interest, yawning.

Brian grinned and nodded. “This is perfect, Brock! C’mon back an’ we’ll turn the rest of ‘em on. Over.”

“Gotcha. I’ll be right there. Over and out!”

Brian held out one of the boxed devices to Kelly. “Open ‘er up. We got seven so we’ll share ‘em out.”

The two sat together on the side of the road, opening up the boxes and loading each one with batteries. They tuned them all to channel-five and made sure the quality was all just as good as the first. More tired faces joined them eventually, sitting or standing on the shaded grass. Curious fingers found their own devices, playing with dials and buttons.  

“How expensive were these things?” Ryan mused as he fiddled with the options.

“Three hundred,” Brock mumbled, pushing the antenna of his in. “They have good range from here to the doctors. And maybe further, we don’t know. But they’ll be useful for us. Always have one of these in your partners, or at least near enough for you to get to if there’s an emergency, okay?”

Slow nods. Daithi and Evan were the two missing from their crew and Brock silently decided his and Daithi’s would remain at the doctor’s. Brian put a walkie aside for Evan too. With what they had, they could share one between Brock and Daithi, one between Scott and Marcel, two between the three girls and one each for Evan, Brian and Ryan.

“Who has the biggest living space?”

Scott raised his hand. Their home had a large living room that would easily fit all of them. It would be a good meet up point. “Our main room is big enough for all of us to talk or eat.”

Ryan stood. “Perfect. Everyone, go sort your shit out, do any shopping, eat breakfast and then meet at Scott’s in an hour.”

 

-

 

**? ? ?**  
**6 th of March**  
**1:20am**

Cars weren’t comfortable to sleep in. There were four of them, an eight seater half-van, half-car that coughed its way down the long dry roads. Two in the front, one in the middle and one in the very back.

“Where are we going?” The feeling of blood painting his fingertips, rubbed between his thumb and forefinger. Lashes kissed his cheekbones.

Fingers linked with his, relaxed and loose where they sat atop the consol. Another hand sat limply on the bottom of the steering wheel, silver rings with gems and patterns clothing short fingers. A gentle shrug. Pale eyes didn’t look away from the road ahead. “Somewhere safe.” A gentle murmur. The tip of a thumb nail drawing along the inside of a soft hand. A promise. “Soon.”

But their car was empty mind a few bags of food. With four boys like them, it wouldn’t last long. Dread hung from the stars that watched them drive.

He shuffled down in his seat, trying to get some sort of comfortable where he was. He didn’t dare draw his hand away from the driver’s.

“Okay.” The barest of whispers. One of the boys behind them snored, shuffling where he laid splayed along the seats. He hardly fit his height along the width of the car, awkwardly tucked up to make room for himself. The other was soundless and invisible tucked behind the middle row of chairs. They didn’t hear a word spoken before them.

And it was a perfect moment really. The crescent moon, bashful stars, endless road. Fingers linked. Eyes cast ahead of them. Three pretty words brushing over the tip of his tongue; encouraging, pleading.

He didn’t dare.

“Just because I can escape a hoard of six-year-old cannibals, that doesn’t mean I wanna die because you fell asleep at the wheel. Wake me when you’re tired.” Grumbling and tired, but undertones of emotion they didn’t talk about.

A soft laugh. “Even if we did crash, you would be the one to survive out of all of us. We know how luck throws itself at you, like some kind of four leaf clover, black cat magnet.” Pale eyes glancing through the dark, glimmering with tired teasing.

“Black cats are bad luck, dipshit.” Scoffed. Genetically discoloured eyes rolled in amusement, following imaginary lines between the stars above them.

“Whatever. You know what I mean.” Smiling words. The prettiest kind of words. “Get some rest. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

“Okay.” Three words. Unspoken.

He fell asleep smiling softly. Soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for giving it a read!  
> Please do drop a comment below if you have any thoughts at all about the story, what you like, what you dont like, etc. I would love to make this story as enjoyable to read as possible so I'd love to hear what you guys think.   
> Thanks a lot! <3


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